


My King

by Benjamin_Winter



Series: Young Hearts: Original, Romantic Erotica [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Blood and Violence, Breast Fucking, Drama, Drama & Romance, Erotica, F/M, Fantasy, Gratuitous Smut, Infidelity, Low Fantasy, Oral Sex, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Romance, Smut, Vaginal Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:13:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7911280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benjamin_Winter/pseuds/Benjamin_Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in a loveless marriage to his hateful wife, young King Ulric Kargray sends his steward in secret to fetch him a whore to comfort him for an evening. When Ulric realizes the girl is not what he expected, his desperate need for love sows consequences.</p><p>A "low fantasy" erotic romance.</p><p>- - -<br/>The story is not dead. The 5th chapter is in-progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Finer Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone who gives kudos has my heartfelt thanks. I do read all comments, so feel free to leave one.

          The marble balcony was warm to Ulric’s touch, heated by the setting sun, and a gentle wind whisked the curled locks of his earthy-brown hair. Though the West Sea was behind him and his keep, he could still smell its salted breezes as they drifted past. The city proper stood hundreds of feet below him, and its busy streets fell under cloaks of long, sleepy shadows as the sun fell behind the city’s stone skyline. Weswyn was a great city, its walls strong and durable, and its people no less so. War, fever, and famine all lashed out at Weswyn as the years passed, but all failed to bury it. The city was the greatest the land had ever seen or would see, and it was Ulric’s. The city was his, the land was his, just as it all was his father’s before him.  
  
          Twenty-five years Ulric had watched that sun set across Weswyn. He’d watched it a thousand times, first with his late father, as the Prince, and now alone, as the King. Ulric had seen it more times than he could count, and still it had an effect on him. The quarrels of his court and cousins, the barbs he suffered from his hateful wife he had been chained to, it all took a toll on Ulric, wore on him. The ever-growing shadows under his blue-gray eyes told as much. But when he came to this balcony, when he watched his city drift to sleep, he was better. Calmer.  
  
          Ulric sighed deeply, turning his back to the sunset. He strode through the silk curtains to his chambers, the smooth fabric brushing pleasingly against the rough stubble of his face. He swung open the heavy door to his chambers, a vast bedroom, with a lush carpet across its floor that hugged the soles of one’s feet, and walls adorned with lavish tapestries that served well to trap errant ocean breezes against the wall. Ulric’s chambers often suffered from a damp coolness, as any room in a seaside keep often did, but, God willing, it was warm that night.  
  
          Beside Ulric was a wide dining table, fashioned from the finest maple wood, sporting a shining, polished finish. An ornate glass pitcher full of a dark red wine rested on it, with a gold-cast goblet beside it. In the far corner of the room sat his wooden desk, with a quill, inkwell, and several lit wax candles across its upper shelf. In a third corner sat a vast bed, with a finely-woven duvet and down pillows. A nightstand with a dark, unlit lantern stood at the bed’s side.  
  
          Ulric took the pitcher of wine from the near table and poured full his goblet. He was a man of healthy thirst, but that was no different than his father. Did Ulric drink a bit more these days in particular? Maybe, but he wasn’t ashamed of it, no, far from it. It was as his father had always mused, laughing merrily as he said it: ‘ _a King needs two things to rule well, little Ully: a fine wife and a finer wine.’_ He was a man of many faces, Ulric’s father. He could laugh and sing one moment, raising high mugs of thick mead or glasses of dark wine, and he could glare daggers the next, striking fear into any who failed or angered him, nobles and commonfolk alike. He was a man who had loved his business almost as much as he had loved his pleasure.  
  
          Ulric raised the gold goblet to his lips and took a thick swig. The wine tasted as it smelled: potent, hearty, with a faintly spiced edge to it, a true pleasure to the tongue. ‘ _A fine wife and a finer wine’ ..._ the thought had Ulric smiling somberly. He had never before thought that one of those two could send him clambering for the other.  
  
          The iron knocker rapping against his chamber door roused Ulric from his thoughts. He sighed at the sound of it, as it perhaps was Elise, his wife and his Queen. Ulric had been certain she had retired for the evening, after their early dinner. She had certainly announced it loudly and arrogantly enough. By Elise’s own request they did not share bedchambers, a hallmark of a Lord and Lady engaged in a loveless union. That request had once hurt Ulric, wounded him deeply, but now, four months after their wedding, he had come to be thankful for it. Seeing Elise as often as he did was unpleasant enough.  
  
          “Your Grace?” The voice was not of Ulric’s wife, but rather the stagy, expressive voice of his steward, Edwin Pollard, a man who had long served Ulric’s family. “I’ve something for you,” he said through the door.  
  
          Having lost himself in his thoughts, Ulric had almost forgotten. Not three hours ago he had sent Edwin in secret to fetch him a whore, the prettiest he could find, with the biggest tits and fattest arse. It had been weeks since Elise had _‘graced’_ Ulric, as she loved to call it, and Ulric was far past letting that hateful woman dictate the sating of his basest of needs. And Ulric was of course no stranger to whores. After all, for seven years of his adult life he had been unwed, and in those years – and even a couple years before – he had been a young man with the same needs as any other. Again, like his father before him – whom he had spoken to and laughed with at length with matters of the flesh, unashamed – Ulric was a lustful man. He needed to sate himself often, and he would do it tonight.  
  
          Ulric set down his goblet and made his way to the chamber door, swinging it open. There, in the hall, was his steward Edwin, a wiry, gangly man garbed in a well-worn linen tunic. And before Edwin stood a teen girl, clad in a silk, warmly pink whorehouse robe that hugged her curved figure of full breasts and wide, flaring hips. She was fair-skinned, with long hair of a sunny golden blonde that fell to her breasts, brushed free of any tangles or knots. The girl was a gorgeous young thing, with a soft, angular face, high bones of the cheek, a sloped nose and arched, golden brows. The girl was quite a bit shorter than the tall-standing Ulric, by a good foot or so. A rosy red had bloomed across her pale cheeks when she saw her King, looking to him with wide, sky-blue eyes, starstruck by him. She smiled to him warmly, her hands clasped together at her waist, nervy with excitement.  
  
          “Your Grace,” she greeted Ulric breathlessly, bowing low before him.  
  
          “I trust she’s to your liking?” Edwin asked, a cheeky grin crooking around his gaunt lips.  
  
          Ulric nodded to him. “Leave us,” he said.  
  
          “Of course,” Edwin bowed dutifully and exited down the hall.  
  
          “Come in,” Ulric said to the girl, gesturing into his chambers.  
  
          She did as he asked and strode past him, with the clean scent of rosewater and lavender following her in the air. Ulric swung shut the heavy door behind her, fastening its iron lock. It was a wise precaution, though in truth Ulric wasn’t sure how Elise would react to his infidelity, or even if she would react at all.  
  
          The girl stood in the room’s center, admiring the tapestry on the wall before her, tracing with her eyes its blue inlets across its intricate, red-patterned backdrop. She was one of the few commoners to ever have seen these chambers, and one of the very few to see it that were not live-in servants of the keep.  
  
          Still not quite feeling loose enough or light enough on his feet, Ulric once again took to the wine pitcher, filling his goblet. “What’s your name, lass?” he asked curiously as he raised his drink to his lips.  
  
          She spun ‘round to meet his gaze. “Vivian, Your Grace,” she quickly answered, her voice light and high, like that of a songbird. “Vivian Caldwell—but my brother calls me Vivi.”  
  
          _“‘Vivi?’”_ Ulric scoffed after draining his goblet. “Sounds more befitting of a dog.” He then paused, taken aback by his own sudden cruelty. He looked to Vivian and saw her frowning weakly. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “That was cruel of me. It’s been a busy week. Busy _month_ , really.”  
  
          “I’d bet,” Vivian said sweetly, a cutesy smile returning to her full lips. She seated herself on the edge of Ulric’s bed, watching him patiently.  
  
          “How old’re you, Vivian?”  
  
          “Sixteen, Your Grace.”  
  
          Again Ulric filled his goblet and drank. The pitcher was nearing half-empty now.  
  
          “Your Grace,” Vivian said, and she had begun to wring her hands worriedly. “If you don’t mind my prying… does Lady Elise not… _satisfy_ you?” She looked fearful to have been brazen enough to ask him such, and perhaps she should’ve been. It was an odd thing for a whore to pry into why a client needed her services. But Ulric was unoffended. The modesty of his marriage meant little to him, and he had no trouble speaking of how Elise seemed to take such pleasure in his misery.  
  
          “I wouldn’t have had you brought here if she did,” he said dully.  
  
          Vivian gave him a puzzled look. “But, then… why did you marry her?”  
  
          A stupid question. Commoners wed for love. Highborn wed for power.  
  
          Ulric had never known a whore to be so interested in conversation, nor one prone to such naïveté. _‘Why did you marry her?’_ Why else would he have done it? Why did any King ever marry? “I did it because it needed to be done,” Ulric said, a bit of anger coloring his voice. “I did it for my family.”  
  
          Ulric turned to Vivian as she fell silent, looking to him wistfully. She was… sorry for him. Ulric stifled a bitter laugh; he was the King and Vivian the commoner, and she was _sorry_ for him.  
  
          “Forgive me, Your Grace,” Vivian said shamefully, frowning again. “It was a stupid thing to ask.”  
  
          “It’s fine,” Ulric assured her flatly. “D’you want some?” he asked, lightly shaking the wine pitcher in his hand. “I’ve another cup somewhere around here.”  
  
          Vivian shook her head. “I shouldn’t.”  
  
          Ulric shrugged. “As you wish.”  
  
          Strange for a whore to abstain, but Ulric didn’t think much of it. Besides, there was still quite a bit more drinking to be done before he’d be swimming in a warm, pleasant buzz. He didn’t intend to spoil this night by bedding the girl sober, no, that would be truly wasteful.  
  
          “My brother fought with you, Your Grace,” Vivian said, watching him intently and with bated breath, as if fantasizing of Ulric on the field of battle.  
  
          “Did he now?” Ulric raised a brow curiously. “And what did he think?” he chuckled as he took another swig.  
  
          “He said you were amazing,” Vivian paused, swallowing audibly. “Standing tall, swinging that greatsword, fighting like a man possessed. He said he saw you cut down a _dozen_ Syderans.”  
  
          Ulric looked back to Vivian. It was clear before, but Ulric only saw it now: the girl was infatuated with him.  
  
          It was common for Ulric’s subjects to fancy him. He ruled strong and firm, yes, but he ruled kind and generous as well. That said, Ulric had never once bedded a whore who would shower him in such honeyed adoration. They’d cry out for him, babble _‘God, yes,’_ _‘harder, more,’_ and other sultry nonsense, but that was after they’d stripped and were tumbling with Ulric in his bed. But Vivian, worshipping him like this, out of the nude and with such seemingly genuine affection, she was… different. It was certainly a pleasant contrast from Elise. It made for a nice change of pace.  
  
          “He told me he wouldn’t be alive if not for you,” Vivian said.  
  
          “Damian Caldwell,” Ulric nodded slowly as the memory returned to him. The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen back in the war, clean-shaven with a head of shaggy blonde hair tucked under his iron cap. A good fighter, if a bit wild and unrefined, but skilled enough to fight in the King’s vanguard. The boy had almost lost his head to a Syderan before Ulric slew the savage.  
  
          “You remember him?” Vivian perked up, her eyes alight with joy.  
  
          “Aye,” Ulric nodded again. “The men you bleed with, you don’t soon forget them.”  
  
          Vivian smiled from ear to ear. “That’s very wise to say.”  
  
          Ulric fell still. “My father said it.”  
  
          Even now, years after the fact, the death of Ulric’s father still lingered on him, heavy on his soul. A man as indestructible as his father, so unwilling to be held back by any worldly person or thing, he couldn’t have been taken by a fever. It _couldn’t be_. It just wasn’t like him.  
  
          Ulric cleared his throat, fighting back the wave of emotion. “Yes, well, if he knew I was speaking of him when I could be bedding a girl, he’d be turning in his tomb.”  
  
          That drew a short giggle from Vivian, smiling now with her eyes as well as her lips.  
  
          “You certain you don’t want any?” Ulric asked, holding out the pitcher. He couldn’t help but feel odd, drinking in the presence of an abstainer, an abstainer he was about to bed, no less.  
  
          Vivian nodded. “I’m certain.”  
  
          “A whore that doesn’t drink,” Ulric chuckled, imbibing another mouthful of his wine. “That’s new.”  
  
          Vivian laughed with him, giving Ulric a strange, brow-furrowed look. “I’m not a whore, Your Grace,” she corrected him amiably, looking baffled that Ulric would even make such a suggestion.  
  
          Ulric slowly lowered his goblet as he looked to the girl, confused. Had he heard her right? “What d’you mean?” he asked.  
  
          “My mother’s a tailor, in the Diamond Quarter. I sew with her. It’s where I got this dress,” Vivian said, grinning devilishly as she glanced down to her silken robes. “My mother still thinks it’s in storage. She won’t ever know.”  
  
          Ulric’s eyes narrowed. Was the girl playing him for a fool, teasing him? Was she roleplaying? “Where did Edwin find you?” he asked, eyeing her cautiously.  
  
          “He frequents my mother’s store, Your Grace,” Vivian answered, nodding. “Many lords and ladies do. We’re very blessed.”  
  
          “You’re the daughter of a tailor,” Ulric began, “But you took coin to come here, to be bedded by me?”  
  
          Vivian reached behind herself, into the rear of her robes, and produced a small, knot-tied pouch; the gold Edwin had given her. She unsealed it, loosing from it a few gold coins. “I shouldn’t have accepted it, Your Grace. I don’t need it. My mother and I make good coin.”  
  
          Anger welled in Ulric’s chest. He slammed his goblet on the table, spattering dark droplets of wine on the cuff of his shirt, staining it. “Do you think me an idiot?” he growled. “Why did you agree to come here, girl? You’re not a whore, so tell me, _why_ did you come? To ask me your idiotic questions? To mock me? Did you just so _desperately_ want to see your King in person?”  
  
          Vivian rose to her feet. “No, Your Grace,” she assured Ulric as she came to stand by him. “ _Please_ , be calm. I came because I wanted to be here for you,” she put her hands gently to his face. “To make you better. You’re my _King_. You’ve done so much for me, for my family. I don’t want you hurting.”  
  
          Ulric stood there dumbly, meeting Vivian’s gaze, unsure of what to think. He had never before met this girl in his life, never so much as laid eyes on her, and if not for his brief time with her brother he’d know nothing of her family, nothing of her life. Vivian had no connection to him. Why in God’s name would she adore him? She didn’t; she _couldn’t_. No, Ulric knew that any affection he saw from a woman, whore or queen, was a farce. It was calculated, planned only as a means to get whatever was desired from him. In their first few weeks together, Elise had shown him that.  
  
          But Vivian’s touch was not like Elise’s. Elise’s touch was pointed, hard, and always so goddamned _cold_. But Vivian’s hands were soft, soft and so very warm, almost hot against Ulric’s face. The way she held his stubble, caressing him with a gentle affection, it all seemed so real. Good God, Ulric needed it to be real.  
  
          “Can I kiss you?” she asked him in a whisper.  
  
          Ulric could not find the words, and Vivian did not wait. She put her lips to his and kissed him deeply. Ulric closed his eyes and, slowly, hesitantly, put his arms to the small of Vivian’s back, holding her tight. He ran a hand up her golden hair and took a gentle handful of her silk-like mane. Vivian slackened in his arms, pushing her soft frame lovingly against his, her full breasts pressing heavily against him. Ulric brought his tongue to his lover’s mouth, and she accepted it eagerly. They kissed noisily, with the passion of lovers.  
  
          Ulric wanted to praise Vivian’s beauty, to profess to her his sudden, lustful love for her, but he stopped himself, if only because he knew the time for words to be past. Ulric took the small girl by her waist, lifted her, and wrapped her legs around himself. He broke their kiss and spun themselves ‘round, pinning Vivian’s back against the wall. With ravenous hands he pulled apart the front of her robes, baring her hefty breasts to the air with a fleshy jiggle. Ulric put his mouth to the underside of Vivian’s jaw as she moaned, leaving a trail of wet, sucking kisses as he worked softly down her neck toward her chest.  
  
          Ulric took in hand Vivian’s right breast while he craned his neck downwards, holding the supple flesh as he put his lips over its pink nipple. She let out a quick gasp as he flicked his tongue over her stiffening little bud, suckling her breast deeply. He put his free hand to her other breast, squeezing it, and thumbed its hardened nipple. Vivian purred softly, lovingly, and held her arms tight around the back of Ulric’s neck, partly to keep herself in place, and partly to keep Ulric to her teat. The fat of her breasts yielded lewdly to Ulric’s rough suckling, urging on his lust. His erection now pressed painfully into his trousers, jutting forward like a steel-forged spearhead.  
  
          A sole strand of spit hung from his lips to her nipple as Ulric finally tore himself from Vivian. Her breast now glistened wet from his passion. He set her down to her feet and helped her shrug off the last of her robe, baring to him the smooth flesh of her nubile body. Ulric tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it aside, and Vivian put her hands to his trousers, unfastening his belt as Ulric backpedaled. Ulric spun his lover ‘round and eased her onto his bed, its heavy blankets molding softly around her nude form. Ulric kicked off his shoes and slipped out of his pants and linen breeches. His lengthy, iron-hard shaft stood at full-mast, aching and needy, throbbing with every heavy thud of his heart against his chest.  
  
          With firm hands Ulric parted Vivian’s smooth legs, admiring the flowering pink lips of her cunt and the frizzy bush of golden hair nested around it. The heady, musty scent of her sex tickled Ulric’s nose, stoking the fire of his lust. His manhood twitched at the smell of it, a single drop of early seed spilling from its crown. His cock was eager to be sheathed in the woman before it, to shudder in her hot flesh, but Ulric would not sate it just yet. He would taste her first.  
  
          He fell to his knees by the bed, raising Vivian’s right leg and pecking quick kisses up her inner thigh, up toward her crotch. When his mouth came to rest just off the side of her outer lips he quickly reared back his head, teasing her. The nectar of a woman now bubbled over from her sopping sex, sodden in heat. Ulric would not tease Vivian long, as he then brought his jutted-out tongue to her cunt, pushing it into her tunnel. Her nectar poured over the flat of Ulric’s tongue, overwhelming his senses with her taste. It was like ambrosia; a bit salty, not-quite-sour, and _intoxicating_. He drank it eagerly as it came. Above him Vivian held an arm under her breasts, pinching a single nipple, panting with desire. The sight had a grin forming around Ulric’s open maw. He drew back his tongue and flicked its hot tip across the budding glans of her clitoris, prompting Vivian to draw a short, hissing breath and lock her thighs around him like a vise. She yipped and squealed cutely as her King dined on her, sampling with his tongue every last crevice and corner of her cunt.  
  
           Ulric could keep his urges at bay no longer. He pulled himself from between her thighs and rose to his feet, taking Vivian by her calves and gently easing her further into his bed, so that her legs did not hang off. He crawled into bed over her, putting his knees between her open legs. Vivian wrapped herself around her King, arms over his neck and legs around his hips. Ulric took his throbbing manhood in hand, gave it a few readying strokes, and guided it to Vivian’s waiting cunt. He brushed his cock across her sopping lips, wetting his flared cockhead. He gave her one final, deep kiss, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and, at last, eased his aching cock into her depths, parting her folds around his length.  
  
          With Ulric’s cock sheathed to its hilt within her, Vivian winced, scrunching her face as she held him tight. Troubled by her reaction, Ulric broke their kiss and reared his head back. He peered down at their joined flesh, drawing back his prick a few slow inches, and saw against his cock a few droplets of crimson. Ulric’s heart sank in his chest. In his lust he had forgotten his lover’s own words: Vivian was no whore.  
  
          A Weswyn girl’s maidenhead was a treasured thing, to be given to her husband only, no other. Vivian was a simple commoner, the daughter of a tailor. She was not a brothelworker. She was _not_ Ulric’s to take, not his to deflower. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered as he studied her.  
  
          Vivian met his gaze with dewy, innocent eyes. “I didn’t want you to stop,” she whispered back. Ulric turned and looked off shamefully, but Vivian put her hand to his cheek and turned him back to her, locking her lips sweetly with his. She grinded her hips around his, teasing his twitching sword within her tight sheath. She then broke their kiss, if only for a moment, and met his eyes again. “Don’t stop.”  
  
          What was done was done – the bell could not be un-rung, nor Vivian’s flower un-plucked – and Ulric needed Vivian. He needed her love and he needed her body, both that which she was so eager to give to him. Slowly, Ulric drew out his cock further, until only its crown still rested within the girl’s clinging depths, and then he slipped it back in. Ulric groaned as he put the length of his tool in her, letting it rest a moment in her pink furnace, in the heat that held him tight. Fanged tendrils of pleasure crept up his spine, buzzing under his skin, putting his hairs on-end. Ulric knew he was not to last long. But he would make the minutes count.  
  
          Ulric took Vivian with long, deep thrusts, drawing from her a series of sweet little whimpers. Her spread lips kissed his coarsely-haired crotch at the peak of every thrust, the roiling heat of her cunt palpable against his groin. But warm as she was, she was wetter still; a wetness shone on Ulric’s girth whenever he had drawn out his member, taking a short half-moment in the cool air before sinking back into her sopping depths. Ulric thrusted deep and he thrusted hard, rocking Vivian’s breasts and bottom with every audible slap of his testicles against her arse. His bedroom had become an echo chamber of lust and love; whimpers, moans, and the slapping of flesh rang off the walls.  
  
          Ulric shifted his hands downward, bearing a bit more of his weight down on Vivian. He grabbed her by her fat buttocks, sinking his fingers into the pliant flesh. He held her bottom tight against his groin as he claimed her deeply, pushing his member as far as it’d go, claiming every inch his lover had to offer. Faster, faster, and faster he took her, their joined sexes no less than a blur of motion. Vivian held her King’s head firm against her own, unwilling to let his lips leave hers. She wouldn’t let him go, not ‘till he was finished, and soon that moment did come.  
  
          Ulric took a deep lungful of air and groaned over her like a beast, rocking Vivian with one long, final thrust. A sharp ecstasy thundered in Ulric’s gut, the crown of his cock alight with a joyful pleasure. Vivian’s cunt was a carnal bliss; young and snug, a heated, tight tunnel that hugged and clutched at Ulric’s cock. Her empty womb demanded his ivory gift, and give it he did. His cock twitched and shuddered as he hilted himself, spilling deep into Vivian his long, thick ropes of seed. He groaned all the way as he spent himself, his cock twitching out the last few strings of white into his lover’s womb.  
  
          Ulric sagged as he finished, a gentle heat flushing through him. He gently rolled off Vivian and onto his back, so as not to crush the much smaller girl under his weight. His adoring lover put her hands to his shoulders and showered him in quick kisses to his jaw. Ulric turned his head to give her a kiss to her mouth, and she took him happily, the both of them smiling around their joined lips. A moment later he broke their kiss and sighed, resting his head and closing his eyes. They laid there for some time, for how long Ulric couldn’t be sure, snuggling, enjoying the warmth of each other’s bodies.  
  
          Eventually, Vivian broke the quiet. Her voice was timid, almost fearful. “Can I see you again?” she asked him.  
  
          Ulric put a hand to her back and held her close. “You will.”


	2. A Lover's Touch

          Nothing a King did was quite as dull as checking the post, but it had to be done, and birds brought letters to the palace hourly. Ulric had half a mind to ignore the lot of it, to let Edwin read them all and relay what little importance there was to him after. But Ulric knew better. He was taught better. _‘A King who reads no letters knows no Kingdom,’_ his father had told him. Ulric never knew the man to be wrong.  
  
          Every letter was the same as the last. Empty threats from arrogant Lords, warning they’d pull their men from this or that fort along the coast ... all bluster. Empty well-wishes for some cousin or other of Ulric’s who had just wed or had just fallen ill ... both tragedies. It was empty, all of it. Words upon words, printed in the finest writing, all with no meaning behind them. In a way, Ulric thought it astounding. Unbearable, but astounding. When his father passed and left him the Crown, this wasn’t quite the King’s life Ulric had expected. Not as glamorous, and – the war aside – not as exciting. But the drink would see him through it.  
  
          Ulric gulped the last of his wine and clanked the thick glass down on his desk. He slumped back in his chair and sighed a long breath, giving his eyes just a short moment’s rest. The tall window at his back basked him in the heat of the rising sun, warm and soothing, tempting him into a deep slumber. Ulric had only woken a few hours ago, but already he wanted nothing more than to return to bed.  
  
          His eyes snapped open when he heard Edwin drop another letter before him. “This ought to be an interesting one, Your Grace,” he said to Ulric, and Ulric knew the letter’s seal. It was blood-red, of a thorny rose coiled around a mackerel fish, strangling it. The seal of Lord Rosewall, Elise’s father.  
  
          Ulric grunted as he took a small knife to the letter. “And here I thought marrying his daughter would keep him quiet.”  
  
          Edwin gave a little chuckle of approval. “Out of sight can’t always be out of mind.”  
  
          Ulric pored over the letter, and Edwin took to filling his glass for him as he read. The writing was of Lord Rosewall’s own hand, a rare occurrence, though Ulric wasn’t sure the topic merited it. “The good Lord Rosewall requests my presence,” he said with a bit of a mocking edge. “He asks I join him for the first hunt of the spring.”  
  
          Edwin scrunched his brow. _“Now?”_  
  
          Ulric had a hard time believing it himself. Lord Rosewall knew damn well the Syderan emissary would be here in the capitol within the month, and Ulric would be a fool not to be here to greet him. The letter was nothing more than some ruse or trick, but to what end Ulric couldn’t be sure. Lord Rosewall was a schemer, always plotting, always looking for another card to add to his hand. His daughter was no different.  
  
          Ulric tossed down the letter and took to his drink again. “I’m sure Lord Rosewall was gutted to hear I’d survived the war,” he mused. “A hunting accident would be a perfect way to correct that, don’t you think?”  
  
          Edwin gave him a wide-eyed look. “You don’t really think? …”  
  
          “No, dear Edwin,” Ulric shook his head and took a swig of his wine. “Just thinking aloud, is all. And I’m not going.”  
  
          “You’ll reject him?”  
  
          “Aye. He should know better than to ask. The Syderan will be here before long, and I intend to be here when he arrives.”  
  
          Edwin nodded. He had known Lord Rosewall a long time, far longer than Ulric. Edwin knew the man, and he knew his arrogant ways. “Lord Rosewall never thought the Syderans a threat,” Edwin said. “He still doesn’t.”  
  
          Ulric chuckled into his glass. “Easy for him to think that. He was never on the field. He never saw the war as I did.”  
  
          “Elise won’t be happy to hear this, you know,” Edwin said, his lips curling into a frown. “She’d want you to jump at the first chance for her to return home.”  
  
          Ulric looked to his steward wearily. “Elise can’t always get what she wants.” At his words, an angry fist rapped the knocker against the study’s door, as loud as could be managed.  
  
          It was eerie how quick Elise would come at the uttering of her name. It often had Ulric wondering if his worst fears were true, and the woman was in fact some well-veiled demon cast down on him as punishment for his sins. If that were true, then the wrath of God was indeed terrible.  
  
          Ulric finished the last of his glass as the door swung wide. True enough, Elise stood there in the doorway, standing tall on long, sculpted legs. Smooth, well-brushed hair, black as midnight, fell down her shoulders. The gold lace of her tight-fitting dress shone bright in the sunlight. Much as Ulric wished he could deny it, Elise was stunningly beautiful, as gorgeous as any Queen could ever be. Were he a younger, less worldly man, he’d wonder how he could ever be unhappy with her as his wife. But Ulric wasn’t that man. He knew better now. He could see it in her eyes, emerald-green, hard and piercing, watching him like a predator would its prey.  
  
          Elise looked to Edwin and made a sharp gesture towards the door. “Leave us,” she said curtly to the steward, though Ulric very much wished he would stay.  
  
          “Of course, My Lady,” Edwin bowed low and scurried for the exit. He gave Ulric a final nod before heading through the door and gently closing it shut behind him.  
  
          Ulric eyed the tight, low cut of Elise’s bodice. “Must you insist on dressing yourself so?” he asked her dully. “You look more suited for a whorehouse than a palace.”  
  
          Elise cocked her head. “Does my pride in my body bother you?” she taunted.  
  
          Ulric almost wished it did. “No,” he said.  
  
          She scoffed. “Pity.”  
  
          With a gait like a spider Elise came to Ulric, quick and silent, with long, graceful steps. A cold breeze followed her, prickling the hairs of Ulric’s neck. It was an air that seemed to follow her always, wherever she went. Behind her back, the servants had come to call her ‘the Ice Queen,’ a name she more than lived up to.  
  
          Only a short moment passed before Elise’s eyes came to rest on the envelope with the broken Rosewall seal, and the unfolded letter below it. “From my father?” she asked, snatching the letter up off the desk.  
  
          Knowing too well the argument to come, Ulric reached for the pitcher of wine. He tipped it over his glass, and a good few seconds passed before he noticed something was very wrong: the pitcher was empty. _Of course_ the wine would be gone, now of all times.  
  
          “When are we leaving?” Elise asked, already grinning.  
  
          Ulric looked up at her, meeting her eyes. “We’re not,” he said.  
  
          Her face twisted into a scowl. “Like hell,” she cursed.  
  
          Ulric took the letter back from her. “The Syderan will arrive soon, and I want us here when he does.”  
  
          “He can wait a few weeks,” Elise spat. “The savages wallow in dirt and muck, I imagine this one can survive waiting in a palace for a month or two.”  
  
          “And when he tires of waiting?” Ulric barked back.  “He’ll call off the talks. He’ll head back to Sydera, and the war will be back on by the year’s end. Will you be fighting on the front when that happens?” Elise’s mouth twitched, but Ulric didn’t give her a chance to answer him. “No,” he growled. “You won’t.”  
  
          God above, Ulric wanted a drink.  
  
          Elise’s scowl hardened. “My father—”  
  
          Ulric shot up onto his feet, his temper flaring. He grabbed hold of Elise’s arm and clutched it tight. “Your father isn’t Lord here, love,” he snarled, glaring into her eyes. “He isn’t King. This is _my_ city, _my_ land.”  
  
          Elise yanked at her arm, but Ulric wouldn’t release her. “Let go,” she growled.  
  
          Ulric shook his head slowly. “Not until you learn.”  
  
          Elise looked down to Ulric’s grasping hand, and the scowl vanished from her face, chased away by a wicked grin. She raised Ulric’s arm before his eyes, until he too came to look at his wrist. The white cotton of his tunic’s cuff was splotched dark red. A wine stain. As Ulric looked at it then, only one thought came to him: Vivian.  
  
          The memory was rushing back to him now. The girl’s golden hair, her kiss, the warmth of her touch. It almost seemed like a dream now. But it _wasn’t_ a dream, no, it was far from it. Vivian’s love was _real_ , realer than anything in this god-forsaken palace.  
  
          Elise let out a short, cruel laugh, pulling Ulric from his thoughts. “Is this what a King is to you?” she mocked. “A drunk?” Her grin grew wider. “I suppose you learned from the best.”  
  
          No one ever spoke of Ulric’s father that way. Not to Ulric’s face.  
  
          He wanted to hit Elise then. He wanted to beat her, to strike her upside the face ‘till her cheeks burned red. But… Elise would want that. She’d feed off of it. She’d wear that bruise like the finest brooch. _God_ , Elise knew _just_ where to stick the knife. She knew well Ulric’s idolization of his late father, and she knew the two shared a need for the drink. Elise knew where the stick the knife, and she knew how to twist it.  
  
          A revelation hit Ulric then, dawned on him as bright and blinding as any sun. The wine stain on his shirt, it was nothing to be troubled by, no, it was just the opposite; a gift from God, even. Ulric knew what he needed then, and it wasn’t a drink. He threw down Elise’s arm and stormed off, towards the door.  
  
          Elise smiled as he darted off, no doubt flush with a sense of victory. “Where are you off to?” she called after him.  
  
          Ulric didn’t turn back. “Getting a new shirt,” he hollered.  
  
          It was fate. A wine stain, a stain Elise herself had discovered, no less. It made for the perfect alibi. No one would question Ulric for visiting a tailor now. Not now and not later, either. _“I’ve taken a liking to her seams,”_ Ulric could say. _“Her sewing is immaculate. There’s no one else like her.”_ The justifications were endless. He could see her whenever he liked now, any day of the week. Most Kings who had ever lived were obsessed with their wardrobes, and Ulric could claim to be no different. Fate had given him this chance, and he wouldn’t wait to use it.  
  
          Ulric moved quickly. In minutes he had changed tunics, gathered four of his Kingsguard, and set out with them down into the city proper, stained shirt in hand. Ulric’s face was a familiar one on the streets of Weswyn, and he had no fear of traversing his city. The sword at his hip was more a formality than anything, and the presence of his Kingsguard had less to do with some fear of death and far more to do with his desire to move swift and unimpeded. He hailed a dozen or so commoners and nobles, and even shook a few hands, but he kept a brisk pace all the way.  
  
          There were nine tailors and seamstresses in the Diamond Quarter, and Ulric didn’t know where to start. There was only one tailor he had in mind, but he could waste the better part of the day trying to find her. He wouldn’t have that. He needed to see her _now_.  
  
          “Sir Murdoch?” Ulric said as he turned to face his knight.  
  
          Sir Murdoch was the most senior of the Kingsguard, the resident patriarch of the brotherhood of knights. He sported a long, hooked nose, and a bald head that shone as bright as his steel-plated armor. The knight had served Ulric’s family for thirty-five years, and Ulric trusted him with more than just his life. “Your Grace?” Sir Murdoch put himself before Ulric, standing tall and proper, awaiting his order.  
  
          “I have a tailor in mind I’d like to see,” Ulric said to him. “But I need to find her.”  
  
          Sir Murdoch had lived in the city all sixty years of his life, and he knew it better than any other. “D’you know the name?”  
  
          Ulric shook his head. “Only the surname. Caldwell.”  
  
          Sir Murdoch turned on his heel and pointed at a building at the far end of the street, one of the smaller shops in the Diamond Quarter. “That’s the one,” he said.  
  
          Ulric took his Kingsguard and made his way quick down the road, cutting through the crowd. Ulric hailed no one now, and he shook no hands. He had his destination.  
  
          Ulric looked to Sir Murdoch as they walked. “What do you know of the owner?” he asked.  
  
          “Not much, Your Grace,” Sir Murdoch kept his eyes up and moving, watching the crowd around them. “Name of Joan Caldwell. Husband died years ago, mining accident. Has a son and a daughter, both adults if I’m not mistaken. Quiet family. I’m afraid there’s not much else to tell.”  
  
          Ulric nodded, hanging on the word _‘daughter.’_ “That’s enough, thank you.”  
  
          At the door to the shop now, Ulric spun to face his guard. “Keep everyone out,” he ordered them, speaking with a tone of command. “ _No exceptions_. I’d like some peace and quiet.” In truth, Ulric cared little for the quiet; it was privacy that he desired.  
  
          Sir Murdoch shot Ulric a concerned look. “Shall I join you?” he asked with a single step forward.  
  
          “No,” Ulric stopped him with an outstretched hand. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”  
  
          Sir Murdoch nodded and bowed away, turning to face the crowded street.  
  
          Ulric took one deep, calming breath. He was not a nervy sort, but still he found his heart skipping a fair few beats. He was about to see her again. If nothing else, he could at least lay his eyes on her, he could hear her voice. That might be enough.  
  
          A little bell chimed above his head as he came through the door. Well-cut fabrics hung from carved wooden poles across the walls, wool, linen, hemp, and even a fair bit of silk, all smelling of fresh lavender and soap. A few headless mannequins stood by the east wall, sporting luxurious dresses, robes, and tunics, all adorned with lavish embroidery, sewn by a masterful hand.  
  
          A flurry of footsteps against the hardwood floor was Ulric’s only warning as a woman darted into the room. The woman – Joan, Ulric figured – stood a bit short in stature, and was no older than forty. She had a head of wiry blonde hair, done up hastily in a long-hanging ponytail. The long hours of her work showed in her face, as little wrinkles sat around her blue eyes. Ulric smiled. He could see Vivian in her.  
  
          The woman took a sharp gasp when she saw him, and she hurriedly lowered herself into a curtsey. “ _Y-Your Grace_ ,” she stammered, not finding the breath for her words. “Joan Caldwell, yours to command. It’s—it’s an honor.”  
  
          Ulric took her hand and kissed it graciously, “The honor’s mine,” he said softly, still smiling.  
  
          Joan’s hand quivered a bit as Ulric released her. “What all can I do for you, Your Grace?” she asked him as she patted her dress free of its wrinkles.  
  
          Ulric turned and looked to the hanging fabrics, feigning as though he were admiring them. Much as he wished he could see Vivian now, he knew it best to take his time. He had a plan, and subtlety was key. “I’m in need of a seamstress,” he mused. “And a little bird told me you’re the best there is.”  
  
          Joan glowed a bit at that. “I’m not sure I’m worthy of such praise.” She said, shaking her head.  
  
          Ulric waved off her humility. “Nonsense. You wouldn’t be in the Diamond Quarter if you weren’t skilled,” he said. He turned to face her then. “And I’ve been meaning to meet the mother of Damian Caldwell.”  
  
          Joan’s eyes bulged a bit. “You remember Damian?”  
  
          “Of course. I’ll always remember that head of hair,” Ulric laughed. “Is the young man here now?”  
  
          “No, Your Grace. He’s traveling now, guarding a caravan,” Joan fell quiet for a moment, looking somber. “Good with a sword, that boy.”  
  
          “I know,” Ulric said. Though he didn’t come for Damian, Ulric still wished he could see that young man again.  
  
          “But I shouldn’t waste your time, Your Grace,” Joan said, breaking the quiet. “What is it you needed from me?”  
  
          Ulric held out the shirt in his hand, pushing out its darkly stained cuff. “Had a bit of an accident, as you can see.”  
  
          Joan took the shirt from him and looked closer at the cuff. “ _Oh, no,_ ” she said, sounding truly sorry for him. “That won’t do.”  
  
          “Think you can get the stain out?”  
  
          Joan thought it over for a moment. “I’m not sure. Better to just replace the cuff.”  
  
          Ulric nodded. “How much will I owe you?”  
  
          Joan froze fearfully at those words, looking terrified of upsetting Ulric with some exorbitant price. “Twenty silvers?” she said, though it sounded more of a question than an answer.  
  
          Ulric shook his head furiously. “Far too little. Five crowns sounds better.” He took the gold coins from his purse and stuck them swift into Joan’s empty hand, giving her no chance to object. “Can you fix the cuff now?”  
  
          Joan took a moment to clear her throat, stunned by Ulric’s generosity. “I can have it done in twenty minutes. Shall you wait here, Your Grace?” she turned to leave him, but Ulric gently took her arm and stopped her.  
  
          “ _Actually_ ,” he began, drawing her eyes back to him. “I’ve been wanting a new nightrobe. Think you’ve got something I’d like?”  
  
          “Of course,” Joan put her hand to a smooth, off-white fabric hanging beside her. “I just sowed a robe from this the other week. Corovan cotton. It’ll put you to sleep right quick, better than any lover’s touch.”  
  
          Better than Elise’s touch, at the least.  
  
          “The robe’s in the cellar,” she said, gesturing towards a stairway in the far corner of the room. “My daughter will show it to you, and I’ll get to work on this shirt.”  
  
          Perfect.  
  
          _“‘Daughter?’”_ Ulric parroted her, faking shock as best he could.  
  
          Joan gave him an idle nod. “Vivi, dear?” she called out. “Could you come in here?”  
  
          A long moment passed. Too long for Ulric. His heart fluttered, and his stomach twisted into a painful knot.  
  
          Another set of footsteps rapped against the wooden floor, and then, finally, Ulric saw her. She was garbed in a worn commoner’s dress, with her golden hair done up in a tail just as her mother’s. As she stood, she was a far cry from that groomed, perfumed girl he’d met on that fateful evening. But she was a natural beauty, no less stunning now than she was then, no less appealing to Ulric’s eyes. He wanted to grab Vivian then and there, to pull her into an embrace and feel her love and her warmth. But he couldn’t, not yet. He just needed a few more moments of patience.  
  
          Vivian looked from her mother to Ulric, and she fell slack-jawed when she saw him. _“Ulric?”_ she uttered with wide eyes, beaming him a bright, glowing smile.  
  
          “ _Vivian!_ ” Joan hissed between gritted teeth. “This is your _King_!”  she cried out in horror. “You will address him properly!”  
  
          “No, no,” Ulric cut in, saving Vivian from her mother. “It’s quite alright. No need to flay the girl.”  
  
          Joan put two of her fingers to the bridge of her nose and took a long, calming breath, exasperated. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said to him gratefully, and turned to her daughter. “Vivian, dear, take the King and show him the nightrobe I sowed last week. The Corovan cotton.”  
  
          “I know the one,” Vivian answered obediently.  
  
          “Good.” Joan took a lit lantern from the countertop and handed it to her daughter. “Take this, and don’t drop it on the stairs. Light the candles in the cellar and blow them out when you come up.” She put a hand to Vivian’s chin. “D’you hear me, girl?”  
  
          “ _Yes_ , mother,” Vivian groaned.  
  
          “See to it, then.” With that, Joan shooed her daughter with a firm pat and darted off into the back room, quicker than Ulric ever thought he’d see her move. Joan was looking to impress him, and she’d work fast. Ulric would have to work faster.  
  
          Vivian walked Ulric down the stairs and into the blackened cellar. There was no scent of dust or musk, but only a strong scent of soap and washed linens. Vivian circled through the room, lighting a half-dozen candles across a series of shelves and desks. With every new burst of light came ten more gowns, dresses, tunics, and belts, some folded and stacked neatly, others hung over wooden props. Leaving Vivian to her task, Ulric quietly shut the cellar door behind them and pulled down its iron lock.  
  
          With the final candle lit, Vivian set her lantern down carefully on a near shelf, minding to keep the heat of its flame far from the nearest fabric. Ulric was on her the moment she turned, putting his arms around her, holding her tight as he put his lips to hers in a deep kiss. Vivian jolted at first, taken by surprise, but she soon slackened in his arms. She returned his kiss with passion, pushing her hot tongue into his mouth. She put her hands to his shoulders and sunk into his chest, entwining their bodies in a loving embrace. Ulric reached up her back and took the little leather band from her hair, freeing her long, blonde locks to fall down her back.  
  
          “I missed you,” Vivian whispered under a raspy breath.  
  
          Ulric held her face and met her deeply blue eyes. “I swore you’d see me again,” he said to her, running his thumb over her soft cheek. “I’m a man of my word.”  
  
          Ulric snaked his hand up the skirt of her dress, trailing up her warm thigh to her curvy, apple-shaped bottom, veering on the edge of her panties. Vivian put a firm hand to Ulric’s chest, stopping him, and gave him a worried frown. “My mother—”  
  
          _“—Shh,”_ Ulric hushed her, brushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “We’ll be quiet,” he whispered, almost pleadingly. “ _I need you._ ”  
  
          Vivian fell quiet at that, studying him for a short, silent moment, until a smile came to her again. “I’m yours,” she said with eyes glowing, blue and bright and joyful.  
  
          Ulric took Vivian deep into another open-mouthed kiss, and she sighed happily into him. Ulric slid his hand up her panties, to the heat of her wetness, and slipped a finger into her. Her tunnel tightened at the welcome intrusion, contracting around his finger in a hot, steady rhythm. Wet beads of Vivian’s lust trailed down his hand, as far down as his wrist. She was ready for him.  
  
          Ulric broke their embrace and spun Vivian on her heels. He put a firm hand on her back and pressed down, bending her over the dimly-lit desk. Hurriedly, Ulric hiked up the back of the girl’s long skirt, pulled down her panties, and dropped his own trousers and drawers. His longsword hit the floor with a low, dull thud, muffled by its scabbard. Not a sound was made as they undressed.  
  
          He took his manhood in hand, throbbing and stiff as iron, and prodded Vivian’s moist gash with it, teasing her entrance. Her gold-haired bush prickled his shaft, a million little tickles that had him shivering from shoulder to shoulder.  
  
          Finally, Ulric pushed his cock forward, forcing his head through her taut, pink lips, and he let out a gasp. Her dripping cunt gripped him snug and warm, hot as an oven but even tighter still. Slowly, Ulric pushed another inch in her, and then more and more, until his length had disappeared into her rump. Vivian’s twat still felt virginal to him, no less tight-fitting than the evening he claimed her. Ulric was the man she had given herself to, after all, and her flesh knew his cock well. She was a perfect fit for him, wet and accepting of his length, but tight and gripping as well.  
  
          Vivian mewled sweetly beneath him, taking long, languid breaths. Ulric leaned down over her and put his nose to her hair. He inhaled slow and deep, and his manhood stiffened at her feminine scent. He pushed and pulled from her steadily, careful to pace himself. Already his cock twitched within the girl, aching for release, oozing thick drops of pre-seed into her womb. Ulric stood back upright and looked to their joined hips, watching Vivian’s huge, rounded rump wobble at the end of every thrust. He gave her a sharp, open-palmed swat on her bum, firm but not too hard, just enough to jiggle her arse as a treat for his eyes.  
  
          Ulric thrusted quicker now, crashing his hips into hers, sawing his cock up her furry twat as far as she’d take him. But it wasn’t enough. Ulric needed more, he needed to feel her deeper, and he wanted to see her when he did. Without uttering a word he withdrew from her depths, and his breath caught when the crown of his cock finally escaped her clinging folds. Sighing, Ulric put his hands gently to her flat belly and stood her back upright. He turned Vivian towards him and eased her backwards, gently setting her arse down on the desk.  
  
          Standing between her legs, Ulric put his hands to Vivian’s thick, womanly thighs and pressed them ‘part, opening her hips to him. Vivian locked her ankles behind him and put her hands to his shoulders, readying herself for her lover. Eager to be sheathed in her again, Ulric took his aching cock in hand, still slick with her nectar, and slid it home once more, parting Vivian’s pink, wet lips with ease. Her cunt squelched and rippled around him, drooling a thick web of moisture over his member. Ulric worked himself into a frenzied pace, his balls slapping at her with every thrust, their nether-hairs joining to make a thick, curly sea of brown and gold. Ulric rocked her hard against the wall, grunting as he crashed his hips into hers. Letting out a girlish moan, Vivian slipped a hand down between her open thighs, diddling her outer lips with her fingers, and, after gathering a bit of courage, she gave her clitoris a quick pinch. She cried out at that, far too loudly.  
  
          Ulric had his hand over her mouth in an instant. He was so close to finishing, far too close to let his lover give the two of them away. His breath became shallow, his chest rising high and quick, and soon that tense, telltale pressure beneath his loins became unbearable. His manhood swelled and pulsed as a burning, fire-hot climax crashed into him. He bottomed out with a groaning sigh, pushing all of his length into her as her cunt sealed around his base. Thick, potent globs of spunk shot out from his crown, filling Vivian’s womb ‘till it swam white with his seed. Her snug, youthful walls hugged and squeezed his prick tight as he filled her, snuggling his length, sucking out of him every drop that she could.  
  
          Ulric rested his length in her for as long as he could. Time was not his ally, he knew that, but he was goddamned sure he’d make the minutes count. It was silent upstairs, no footsteps to be heard, not a single whisper from Vivian’s mother. There was still time to spare, still time to bask in the afterglow.  
  
          With a deep sigh Ulric drew from his lover, and Vivian’s gold-furred lips fell closed as he pulled from her. A thin, steady stream of white seed drooled out after him, funneling out of her pink slit. In a bit of fateful timing, Vivian’s crinkled skirt folded down and fell, draping back over her thighs.  
  
          A softness against his chin drew Ulric’s gaze back to Vivian, who glowed at him with low, lidded eyes. “ _My love_ ,” she whispered, nuzzling him with her hand.  
  
          Ulric took her hand and held it gently, smiling at her. “My love.”  
  
          The words were off his tongue without a thought, without any consideration of their meaning or their weight. None of that concerned him, not then. Those were thoughts for another time. Another life, even.


	3. The Fifth Son

          The servants Tomas and Jory darted from the buffet to the table, setting the plates for a dinner of two, putting each bit of silver exactly where it was proper. They were young, well-kempt men, with full heads of combed hair, strong jaws, and white, straight teeth. Pleasing to the eyes, as all visible servants of royalty were expected to be. The two men had worked in the palace for years now, since they were fifteen, and Ulric knew them well. He had grown into a man with them. He had often shared drinks with them when they all were younger, trading stories of their first times bloodying their fists in a fight, or their first times taking a girl to bed. Things all young men talked of over wine and mead. Ulric was closer to those two than he was his own cousins. Though his father had often been harsh with Tomas and Jory, Ulric never was. He didn’t need to be. Tomas and Jory were grown men now. They knew their duties, and they did them well. They had matured ...  _somewhat._  
  
          Tomas leaned by Ulric and set a knife by his plate. “The Queen-Mother returns tonight,” Tomas mused, gently shifting the silver, making sure its position was exact. “You eager to see her again?”  
  
          Ulric was quick to nod. “Of course,” he said, and it was true. Priscilla, Ulric’s mother, had been gone for nearly a half-year now, longer than any time before. She was a wise woman, smart enough to weave her retirement with her duties as Queen-Mother. She’d visit every corner of the country in her trips, walking on every beach and in every valley, tasting every wine and harvest. She did it all while breaking bread with the Lord and Lady of every hold, mingling with them, drinking with them, ensuring their good faith in her son and in the Crown. She was no less a diplomat than a retiree. But as wise as her time spent was, Ulric couldn’t help but wish she was home more. Without her, the palace seemed empty, soulless.  
  
          Jory snorted behind them, at the buffet. “I wouldn’t be excited to see _my_ mum.”  
  
          Ulric looked over his shoulder to him. “I thought you never knew your mother.”  
  
          “That’s the point,” Jory said quickly. “I’d be right pissed to see her, really,” Jory cut the roast before him into thin, masterful slices as he spoke. “Wouldn’t even know what to say.”  
  
          “ _‘Hey mum, remember me?’_ ” Tomas mocked, raising the pitch of his voice.“ _‘I’m your little baby boy. You pushed me out onto the street quicker than you pushed me out from between your legs.’_ ”  
  
          He and Ulric laughed.  
  
          “How would you know my mum birthed me quick?” Jory asked, as though the thought of it insulted him. “Maybe I took her the better part of a day.”  
  
          Tomas turned to face him. “Well, she _was_ a whore,” he shrugged. “With all the cocks she took, I can’t imagine you were too hard for her. I bet she looked right mangled down there. Like that meat you’re cutting.”  
  
          “ _God’s sake_ ,” Ulric winced, stifling a smile. “Can we not talk of this at dinner?”  
  
          “Right,” Tomas laughed again. “Sorry, Your Grace.”  
  
          The double doors at the end of the dining room flew open, and Edwin hurried through. “Your mother is changing in her chambers,” he said flatly. “She’ll be here when she’s finished,” he looked to the servants, and gave them a curt nod. “You two, go help Mrs. Whitlock in the kitchens.”  
  
          Tomas and Jory looked to each other, puzzled. “We’re not serving?” Jory asked.  
  
          “Only feeding two tonight. I can take it from here.”  
  
          Tomas and Jory hesitated.  
  
          _“Out!”_ Edwin barked at them, stirring them from their stupors. They were gone in a blink, and the doors fell shut behind them.  
  
          Edwin wasn’t his normal self. The curled lip of his usual half-smile was gone, and his voice didn’t float like it often did. Something was the matter, and Ulric knew he’d learn what before long.  
  
          “We need to talk,” Edwin said gravely as he strode to him.  
  
          Ulric met his eyes. “What of?”  
  
          “The girl. Vivian Caldwell. You’ve seen her twelve times in the past two months,” Ulric opened his mouth to speak, but Edwin cut him off. “Don’t try to deny it. It’s my job to keep tabs on you, for your own sake.”  
  
          Edwin was always wise to the goings-on of the city. Every word whispered in every Weswyn alley would eventually fall to his ears. _‘He sees more through the eyes of others than he does with his own,’_ Ulric’s father had once said of the steward. Nothing happened in Weswyn without the man’s notice.  
  
          “So I have,” Ulric conceded.  
  
          “Have you lost your goddamned mind?” Edwin hissed.  
  
          “Calm yourself,” Ulric said dully. “I simply browse her mother’s wares, that’s all. At least, that’s what I’d say, were I asked.”  
  
          “You think Lord Rosewall would fall for that, should he find out?”  
  
          “Who would tell him? No one else knows of Vivian.”  
  
          “With due respect, Your Grace, this is Weswyn,” Edwin said with a sharp, sweeping gesture. “ _The Capital_. Every Lord from north to south has eyes and ears here. If I learned of her, others can too.”  
  
          “You worry too much.”  
  
          “No,” Edwin said, shaking his head furiously. “No, I worry just the right amount.” He paced a few steps back and forth. “I never should have brought her to your chambers. It was stupid,” He stopped in place, and looked to Ulric. “The girl would just never shut up about you. ‘ _My King,’_ that’s what she’d call you. Every time I came by her mother’s store, it was the same bloody thing. _‘How is my King?’_ _‘Is my King well?’_ She was _obsessed_ with you. When I told you were in need of some company, she offered herself in an instant… but I should’ve known you’d do this.”  
  
          “Don’t put this on me,” Ulric growled. “I asked you that night to bring me a whore, but you brought me a lover. You brought me a girl who _cared_. Did you really think that I’d just toss her aside? That I wouldn’t love her back?”  
  
          Edwin scowled at him. “I thought you’d be wiser than this.”  
  
          The doors swung open once more, and the Queen-Mother held there in the doorway, standing in a heavy robe with thick, wide cuffs and a long skirt that dragged on the smooth stone of the floor. Priscilla was a woman well into her fifties, and her age showed. There was a looseness to her cheeks, and crow’s feet sat around her eyes. Her long, earthy-brown hair grew from roots of white. But Priscilla’s spirit masked her age. Her smile was as joyful as ever, and her hazel eyes gleamed with love and life. She acted no closer to the grave than any young woman did, and Ulric couldn’t imagine that ever changing.  
  
          Ulric and Edwin turned to her, and when Priscilla saw their scowls, she paused. “Am I interrupting something?”  
  
          “No,” Ulric stood to his feet and started towards her. “It’s good to see you, Mother.”  
  
          Priscilla took him into a hug and held him tight, squeezing the life out of him like only a mother could.  
  
          “I’ve missed you,” Ulric sighed.  
  
          “And I’ve missed _you_ , Ully.”  
  
          Ulric broke into a smile. “How long are you going to call me that?”  
  
          Priscilla let out a short laugh. “‘Till the day I die,” she said. “And then still after.” She reared back and put a hand to Ulric’s cheek, taking in the sight of him. “You look good, my boy. You look better _._ ”  
  
          Did he? Ulric hadn’t known.  
  
          “No shadows under your eyes,” his mother mused, “Good color in your cheeks.”  
  
          Ulric shrugged. “I’ve been well.”  
  
          “You certainly look it,” she gave him a soft pat on his cheek. “Come, let’s sit.”  
  
          They sat together at the far end of the table, opposite each other. Edwin was quick with the wine, first coming to Priscilla. “Wine, Your Grace?”  
  
          _“God_ yes,” she said, and watched eagerly as her cup was filled. “Oh, Weswyn Red, how I’ve missed you.”  
  
          Edwin came to Ulric next, but Ulric waved him off. “Water,” he said, and Edwin left to fetch it for him.  
  
          Priscilla knitted her brow. “You’re not partaking?”  
  
          Ulric curtly took the water pitcher from Edwin and poured his cup himself, as he often chose to do. “Not tonight,” he answered.  
  
          Priscilla scoffed. “Suit yourself.”  
  
          Ulric hadn’t thought much over the fading of his taste for the drink. It was a crutch of comfort he had needed less and less over these past two months. No longer did he need that sea of red to keep him afloat. A golden sun had dawned over that sea, burned it away, and left Ulric to stand on his own two feet.  
  
          Priscilla took a gulp of her wine and smacked her lips, savoring the taste. “I’m not staying long, sadly,” she mused. “Lord Murray’s firstborn is marrying Lord Batt’s firstborn, and they’ll throw a fit if one of us isn’t there.”  
  
          “Better you than me,” Ulric said.  
  
          She nodded. “It’s not worth your time.”  
  
          Edwin set large, varied plates of food before them as they spoke. Sliced roast and ham, crushed potatoes, and soft biscuits, still warm from the ovens, all with a pleasing enough scent to rouse even the fullest bellies. Ulric leaned forward and prepared his own plate, again, as he often chose to do. He had never enjoyed being waited on hand and foot, not with these most basic of acts. King or not, he was a grown man, able to pour his own drinks, serve his own food, wipe his own arse. Ulric’s father wasn’t helpless, and neither was he. But Priscilla, she never shared that problem. Servants would sweat by the time she was finished.  
  
          “Has the Syderan emissary not been here?” Priscilla asked as Edwin made her plate. “I’ve not heard anything of it. Is he not coming?”  
  
          “He still is,” Ulric said. He skewered a small cut of ham with his fork and took it between his teeth. “There was a Deshnyra.”  
  
          “A _what?”_  
  
          “A call to hunt,” Edwin told her. “When a blood moon comes, the Syderans take it as their god lusting for a hunt. So they do, until they believe their god is sated. They hunt wild boar, elk, anything particularly big. They cut out the ribs from every kill, clean it, and hang it from their belts. If a hunter’s belt isn’t lined with bone by the hunt’s end, he isn’t a true man.”  
  
          A look of shock struck Priscilla. “Syderans are hunting _here_ , in our lands?”  
  
          “Let them hunt,” Ulric said. “One Deshnyra won’t starve us. Better they spend their time cutting down our elk than our men.”  
  
          They fell silent for a time, as the clinking of forks and plates filled the room.  
  
          “Elise is down in the city, then?” Priscilla said, minutes later.  
  
          “Aye,” Ulric nodded. “Eating with friends, as per usual. I can’t recall the last time we shared a dinner.”  
  
          “Two weeks ago,” Edwin said as he took Priscilla’s glass and filled it. “Quite a loud dinner, that. Lots of shouting.”  
  
          Priscilla frowned. “Is it still that bad?”  
  
          “Worse, even,” Ulric said softly. He put down his knife and fork as he fell still. “There was… a morning, a couple months ago. Elise had said something of Father. Said I was a drunk just like he was. I… I grabbed her, and I… I nearly hit her. I _wanted_ to hit her. No, I wanted to do worse than that. I wanted to wring her neck,” he said, his voice growing louder. “I wanted to throw her against the wall and watch her shatter into shards of ice. I almost did,” Ulric paused for a long moment, sighing. “She’s unbearable, Mother. She’s _so_ … cruel _._ ”  
  
          “You’re cruel to each other,” Priscilla countered, refusing to pity him. “It’s not one-sided. I’ve seen it.”  
  
          “Maybe,” Ulric muttered. “The war was easier than this, you know. I knew how to win that, at least. Spill enough blood, kill enough men, and it was over. But Elise… there’s no winning with her. And she was like this from the start, too. She never gave me a chance. Not one. She’s always had this coldness to her, this wall of ice that I can’t break.”  
  
          “You haven’t even _tried._ I’ve never once seen you be affectionate with her.”  
  
          Ulric cocked a brow. “Are we speaking of the same woman?” he asked, laughing in disbelief. “The last bloody thing Elise _wants_ is affection. She wants to fight, she wants to trade barbs. She’s deadlier with her tongue than any man with a sword.”  
  
          “She’s only been here seven months,” Priscilla said. “She’s still… _adapting_. She never chose to come here, Ully. She married you because our families needed it, because it was her duty, just as it was yours. The Rosewalls are important to the Crown. That’s why she’s here. That’s the way of our world. When she realizes that, she’ll warm up to you. But it will take time. You just need to be strong.”  
  
          Ulric shook his head weakly. “I’m not.”  
  
          “You _are,”_ Priscilla leaned forward in her chair, looking fiercely to her son. “I gave birth to five boys, Ully, do you remember? Five boys, and all died as babes. All but the last. You survived, because that’s who you are. You’re a fighter, Ully. Always have been. Nothing on God’s green earth has ever stopped you. No fever, no war, and certainly no wife.”  
  
          Again the doors to the dining hall came open. Steel plates and chain mail clinked and rattled noisily as Sir Murdoch stepped through. The knight stood tall and stiffly, with chin up and shoulders wide. “Your Grace?” he said.  
  
          Ulric and Priscilla both turned to him.  
  
          Sir Murdoch looked meekly from one to the other, and cleared his throat. “The King,” he clarified.  
  
          Ulric wiped his mouth with a cloth. “What is it?”  
  
          “Are you finished, Your Grace?”  
  
          Ulric looked over the table and the foods laid across it, a good portion of which was now gone. “More or less,” he said.  
  
          “The Queen has asked for you.”  
  
          “Where?”  
  
          “Her bedchambers.”  
  
          Ulric nodded and rose from his chair. Priscilla watched him as he started towards the door. “Remember what I told you,” she called out after him.  
  
          The guest wing, where Elise stayed, was on the far end of the palace. Though there were open bedchambers by Ulric’s own, Elise had elected not to use them. She had made it clear she wanted her bed as far from her husband’s as was possible. Being a young woman plucked from her home by her father and shipped off to marry a man she hardly knew, Ulric couldn’t much blame Elise for hating him. But that was seven months ago. If Elise still hated him now, Ulric had to think she always would.  
  
          Sir Murdoch walked with Ulric, shoulder to shoulder. “Did she tell you why she wanted me?” Ulric asked him.  
  
          “No, Your Grace,” the knight was quick to answer. “Only that it was urgent.”  
  
          At the door to Elise’s chambers, Sir Murdoch gave Ulric a bow and left. Ulric raised the iron latch on the door, closed his eyes, and with a long, calming breath, pushed forward.  
  
          Elise’s bedchambers were only a hair smaller than Ulric’s, and, had someone seen the room before she arrived here, they wouldn’t recognize it. The furniture had all been replaced. The browns and earthen tones of the old room were gone, abandoned for new shades of black and red. Elise no doubt had the room looking as closely to her bedroom of old as was possible. Ulric wondered if, when Elise woke in the morning, she could fool herself into thinking that, if only for one moment, she was still home.  
  
          A vast panoramic painting of Redgarden, ten feet wide at the least, hung against the southernmost wall. It was painted of the city from afar, with the bright sun shining down on its auburn walls from a blue and cloudless sky. A bushel of the city’s famous roses, resting in a basket, laid in the foreground.  
  
          “My mother’s here, if you didn’t know,” Ulric said as he looked over the painting. “I imagine she’ll want to speak with you before long.”  
  
          “I don’t want to talk about your bloody mother.”  
  
          Elise’s words rang off the walls, and Ulric couldn’t place her voice. He looked to each corner of the room, but saw her nowhere. “Where are you?” he asked.  
  
          Near the far wall, a dark fur cloak was thrown over a sliding screen, and with a smooth, slow stride Elise emerged from behind it, wearing a loose, satin robe, black as night, blacker than her hair. The robe parted at the front, its tie unfastened, baring her pale flesh. The pink nipples of her pert, modest-sized breasts came in flashes as she walked, the flaps of her robe fluttering with her steps. The moist cleft of her sex was free to Ulric’s eyes, breathing the air openly, guarded only by a trimmed tuft of black hair. _“Here,”_ she said, grinning.  
  
          She was on him then, her well-shaped breasts pressed into his chest, her lips hovering over his.  
  
          “What are you doing?” Ulric asked her coldly.  
  
          “Stop talking.”  
  
          Elise took his bottom lip playfully between her teeth, nibbling it. When she looked up, to Ulric’s eyes, she saw the stillness in them, the iciness. “Don’t be like that,” she said, half-pleadingly. “How long has it been since we’ve laid together? Three months? Four?” She slipped a hand into his waistband, and her cold fingers slithered down his groin. “Don’t you want to be sated?” she said, making her voice sweet and gentle, like a lover. “Is there no lust in your blood?”  
  
          Closer and closer her frigid fingers came to Ulric’s manhood, until her fine, groomed nails brushed against his shaft. “We’re husband and wife, you know,” she whispered, locking eyes with him. “We made vows to each other, you and I. D’you know what that means?”  
  
          Ulric said nothing.  
  
          “It means we take care of each other,” Elise coiled her fingers around the root of his member. “If one of us has an itch, the other scratches it.” Timed with her words, her fingers suddenly tightened, making a firm grip on his cock. Blood rushed to it, a wave of heat struggling to break through her grip of ice. A moment later, she released him, and his cock jumped to a throbbing hardness. A wicked smile came to Elise’s lips. “And I’ve got quite the itch.”  
  
          Tonight would be an act, and Ulric had his parts to play. The needy lover. The faithful husband. Ulric was not these things, but tonight, he would be.  
  
          Elise put her hands to his shoulders and pushed him down into a cushioned armchair. She grabbed Ulric’s trousers at the waist, tugging them down, and pulled down his skivvies then after. She eyed his sizable cock as it sprang free, and quickly had a hand around it, pumping it. Elise sank to her knees, lowering her head. She put her lips to his prick and gave his crown a quick kiss. His member twitched at the touch. She took his cock into her mouth, brushing her tongue against the underside of his shaft. She fellated him hastily, working her puckered lips down Ulric’s length in quick, oral strokes. A moment later, a drop of pre-seed leaked from his crown and fell to Elise’s tongue. She grimaced at the taste of it, and drew her mouth back.  
  
          “Good enough,” she said, giving his spit-sodden cock a few last pumps with her hand. “Don’t want you getting selfish.”  
  
          Elise stood to her feet and shrugged out of her robes, her breasts swaying as they came free. She climbed into the chair over him, and Ulric put his hands to her tits as she mounted him, squeezing the soft flesh under his fingers. Elise flipped her long, black hair behind herself, and reached her hand down to grab Ulric’s wetted cock. She guided his throbbing member downwards to her gash, past her short tuft of black hair, down to her waiting flower. Her breath caught when his prick brushed against her lips, just below her clitoris. She rubbed the thick head of his cock in circles around her little button, and let out a long, languid sigh.  
  
          Elise diddled herself like this for a long while, and Ulric began to fear she would get herself off like this entirely, without insertion. Then, suddenly, she pushed his cock down, swallowing its flared head between her tight, pink lips. She sank down slowly on him, inch by inch, pushing all of his length up through her snug, gripping walls, until her lips kissed his groin and his cockhead pushed against the entrance to her womb.  
  
          Already her wet cunt squeezed at his cock, stroking him, as she held her eyes shut, a look of utter delight on her face. Elise raised her arse, exposing just a few inches of Ulric’s slicked cock to the air, before gently plopping back down, as the cheeks of her tight rump gave the slightest jiggle. Elise slipped a hand down to her sex, lightly teasing her pink button, squeezing tighter on his cock with every touch she gave herself. She rode him like this for some time, leisurely and gently, as Ulric’s needy cock throbbed in her. She was slow, too slow for Ulric’s lust, and he soon grew frustrated. He wasn’t some toy for Elise to diddle himself with, he was a man. If she wanted a ride in the saddle, she’d best be ready to bounce.  
  
          Ulric took his hands from her breasts and reached behind her, putting them to her tight buttocks. He gripped her rump, raised it up, and then plunged it back down, once, then a second time, and then again and again, as her tits rose and fell in his face.  
  
          “Slow down,” Elise whimpered, but the bliss on her face betrayed her. She looked nothing if not pleased.  
  
          “No,” Ulric growled.  
  
          He fucked her hard and fast, impaling her on his cock, claiming every last inch of her sodden, squeezing cunt. He gave a hard swat to a cheek of her arse, and then the other, until they began to redden.  
  
          Ulric took Elise rougher and rougher, anger boiling within him. His mind ran wild with crazed, rageful thoughts, thoughts he’d never think were he not drunk with lust. Elise, the smug bitch, she thought Ulric was hers, her servant to tease, her plaything to rattle like a baby’s toy, day in and day out. But she was _his_ wife. She belonged to _him_. She was the Queen, _he_ was the King.  
  
          With one last flick to her clitoris, Elise finished with a gasp. Her thighs locked and her cunt locked even harder, clenching on Ulric, doubling the friction on his cock as he forced himself through her walls. A familiar pressure built in Ulric, a boiling heat in his loins that begged to burst, and soon it did. A fiery pleasure exploded in his gut, and his cock stiffened and twitched, spewing thick, fertile ropes of white into Elise, filling her womb until it was heavy with his seed.  
  
          Elise went limp and sagged against Ulric as they finished, burying his face in her breasts. Their chests heaved as their flesh became calm, their muscles loosening. But they didn’t lay together for long. Soon Elise was pushing herself off of Ulric, slipping his cock out of her and standing to her feet. She grabbed his trousers and breeches and stuffed them into his hands. “Get dressed,” she told him, “And get out.”  
  
          Ulric watched her as she turned and went to her washbasin. Her arse burned red from Ulric’s hands, and a trickle of his seed ran down her thigh.


	4. A Father's Shadow

          There was no better smell than the sea air, nothing more salubrious or more reminiscent of good memories passed. Ulric’s father had often smelled of the sea. The man had sailed on it whenever he could. _Passion,_ he had named his ship. It was one of the smallest in the Crown’s fleet, and by far the fastest. _‘A life without Passion is no life at all,’_ Ulric’s father had loved to say. He had thought that so clever. Ulric had taken Passion as his own after his father’s death, but he hadn’t sailed on her for two years now, not since before the War. Ulric had neglected her. Her and the sea.  
  
          Ulric stood on the sand of the coast, hundreds of feet below the Weswyn city proper and thousands of feet below the palace itself. The sun was on the horizon of the sea, nearly gone. Jagged rocks rose from the water before him, each standing tall and grainy and hard. The water here was far too dangerous for ships to sail. There wasn’t a seaport for five hundred yards in either direction. That gave Ulric some privacy, and he intended to use it well.  
  
          An angry wind bit at his ears and rocked the lantern clutched in his hand. Dark clouds marred the sky above him. A blackstorm. Only a few of them struck Weswyn in any given year. The wrath of God, most called them. Centuries ago, when Weswyn was a city of wooden buildings, before it was the Capital, the storms had often leveled whole quarters of the city. The fires it wrought would burn for days.  
  
          But as deafening as blackstorms were, Ulric knew he’d sleep soundly tonight all the same. After all, he wouldn’t be alone.  
  
          “My cousin Della hates the sea,” Vivian said. She stood beside Ulric, gazing with him out over the West Sea. They’d decided to share Ulric’s bedchambers again tonight, for only the second such time in the three months they’d known each other. Ulric could see that she’d made sure she looked the part for the occasion.  
  
          Vivian wore a deeply-blue dress, the color of her eyes, with a long skirt that flowed at her ankles. Her top was of a low cut, and her sizable cleavage breathed the air openly. She looked as though she’d spent hours prettying herself for him. Her lips were glossed with lipstick to the shade of a warm, gentle pink, and the rouge on her cheeks gave them a rosy-red blush. A smoky, black cosmetic sat around her eyes. The harsh winds whipped her long, blonde hair behind her in a wispy trail of gold.  
  
          “Heartlanders don’t understand,” she shook her head. “They don’t appreciate it like we do.”  
  
          “No,” Ulric smiled to her. “They don’t.”  
  
          In unison, they took the sea air deep through their noses, letting it fill their lungs, and let it out with a long, pleasured sigh.  
  
          Tonight would be a good one. One to remember. Ulric was sure of it.  
  
          Ulric turned and made his way with Vivian further down the beachside, till they were walking through a small inlet hidden in the bedrock directly beneath the palace. Few ever stepped foot in this cove, and even fewer knew its true purpose. In this cove there was a tunnel, carved out of the rock over the course of many years, that spiraled upwards into the bowels of the palace. Should Weswyn ever be sacked by invaders, the royal family could flee down into this cove and be ferried by a dinghy out into the city’s fleet, assuming that fleet was still standing. Only, that sacking had never happened. Not once. As far as Ulric knew, the tunnel had only ever been used to sneak lovers into the King’s bed. To that end, Ulric had a hard time believing he was the first.  
  
          That day Ulric first met Vivian, more than three months ago now, Edwin had been the one to bring her through this cove. Ulric had asked Edwin to bring her tonight as well, just as he did before, but the steward refused. He wanted no part in their romance, not anymore. _‘Foolish and reckless,’_ he had called it. Ulric supposed he could’ve forced his steward’s hand, made it a binding order, but Edwin had always served him well. The least Ulric owed the man was some dignity. Edwin deserved as much.  
  
          The howls and moans of the West Sea’s winds echoed deep through the tunnel. The path forward was utterly black, darker than a moonless night, and Ulric could see only as far as the light of his lantern. A fear began to creep into the back of Ulric’s mind, a fear not of the tunnel’s darkness, but of where the tunnel would take him.  
  
          “Ulric?” Vivian chirped up, keeping pace close behind him.  
  
          Ulric spared a glance her way as he kept his path onwards. “Yes, love?”  
  
          “Have you… thought of our futures together?” she asked him. “What we’ll do?”  
  
          Ulric’s face tightened. He looked forward, away from her. “We’ve had this conversation once before.”  
  
          “I want to have it again,” Vivian said, obstinate against him.  
  
          “What is it you want to say this time, then?”  
  
          “You deserve better than her.”  
  
          “Why?” Ulric scoffed. “Elise is a woman same as any other. She’s a person. She has wants and needs. She’s not some wicked witch, Vivi. As far as Rosewalls go, she may well be the least horrid one I’ve been around.”  
  
          Vivian fell quiet for a moment. For the first time, Ulric was grateful for it. He hated it when she did this, when she clawed at his words and clambered for this one thing she simply couldn’t have. But Vivian wasn’t done pressing him. “She doesn’t love you,” she said.  
  
          “Love has nothing to do with it. She’s my wife.”  
  
          “She doesn’t have to be. You’re King. If commoners can separate, Kings can too.”  
  
          “We’ve been over this, Vivi,” Ulric grumbled. “I took Elise as my wife because I need her family. The Rosewalls hold a sixth of my land and a fifth of my people. They’re powerful, and I need them.”  
  
          “You don’t have to do this for them. You don’t have to do _anything_ for them. You’re their _King_. They’re sworn to you.”  
  
          Ulric’s patience ran thin. He stopped and spun ‘round, towering over Vivian. The flame of his lantern had shadows flickering over his face. To his surprise, as belligerent as Vivian was, there was no anger in her eyes. Instead they had a wistfulness to them, a gentleness. Ulric knew that look. He’d seen it from her before. She was sorry for him.  
  
          Though Ulric had turned with the intention to growl at her, her gaze softened him. It was impossible to be angry with her. She was far too sweet of a girl for that, too loving, too compassionate.  
  
          “When their ancestors bent the knee to mine and swore fealty,” Ulric told her gently, “The vows they made, they mean nothing now. They’re dead words on dead lips. The Rosewalls don’t care about them. None of the families do. They don’t care about the Crown. They want things from me for their loyalty, Vivi. They want their chamberlains in my court, their officers in my army, their daughters as my wife.”  
  
          “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Vivian said weakly.  
  
          Ulric breathed a long sigh. “What d’you want from me, Vivi?” he asked. “You want to be Queen, is that it? Vivian Kargray, Lady of Weswyn? Is that what you want?”  
  
          “Ulric, I—”  
  
          “—We can’t be more than what we are, Vivian,” Ulric said to her. His voice was stern, but so too was it heavy with regret. He wished his words weren’t true, _God_ did he. But they were, and nothing could change that. “We can’t be what you want us to be. It’s a fantasy. It’ll _always be_ a fantasy.”  
  
          Vivian frowned, a look of defeat in her eyes. Ulric’s words were harsh, but he knew she needed to hear them. Girl of just eighteen or not, she needed to know the world, and she needed to know it as it was.  
  
          “Ulric,” Vivian said somberly, meeting his eyes. “I just want you to be happy.”  
  
          “I know, love,” he nodded. He put his hand to Vivian’s soft cheek, and a smile came to his lips. “And tonight, I will be.”  
  
          They let those words be the last. They made their way quietly through the rest of the tunnel, until a wall came to stand before them. Planted firm in the wall’s center was a flat, circular stone emblazoned with the image of the Kargray sigil: the bony, hundred-toothed jaw of the graybelly shark, the largest hunter of the waters of the West Sea. A massive and proud beast, strong and aggressive, quick to lash out at passersby, and always eager to assert its dominance over its peers. There was no beast more like a Kargray, and no beast less like Ulric or his father.  
  
          The wall in truth was no wall at all, but rather a clandestine door placed here not long after the palace above was built, no less than thirty generations ago. Five separate locks all sat in the center of the open jaw, all fitted to the same key, the only key of its kind in the world. Ulric took the key from his pocket, eight-pronged and steel-forged, and unsealed each of the five locks, one after the other, until an audible click came from within. He put his open palms to the cool stone of the wall and pushed it open with a grunt, swinging it outwards and into the darkness of the other side.  
  
          Ulric held his lantern outwards, casting back the black of the dark. There was a sinking in his chest, a terror tugging at his heart. He had hoped he’d never again set foot in this place, not until his death. As his lantern’s flame brought forth its light, cracked statuettes of men and women emerged from the darkness, sculptures of Kings and Queens, Kargrays of ages long-since passed. The dead lined these halls.  
  
          Ulric didn’t want to linger. He swung shut the wall behind them, as the five locks reset with a click, and he started off briskly down the hall, towards the stairwell at the far end.  
  
          “Is your father down here?” Vivian asked him, looking to each side.  
  
          Ulric tensed at her words. His father’s tomb was the most recent addition to this place, and, God willing, Ulric had hoped he could walk this hall without the thought of him lying here, dead and in the dark. “Yes,” he nodded.  
  
          “Can I see him?”  
  
          “No,” Ulric said as quick as she asked.  
  
          “Why?” Vivian grabbed Ulric’s arm and stopped him. “I want to pay my respects.”  
  
          Ulric turned to her. His cheeks had gone pale and white. “Vivian,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me go there.”  
  
          Vivian looked surprised by his fear. She had never seen him like that, with that horror in his eyes. She took his free hand in hers and clasped their fingers close and warm. “Okay,” She told him sweetly.  
  
          Ulric spared not a single glance left nor right as they made their way quick through the hall, and they started quick up the spiral stairwell out of the crypts. It was a long climb of some several dozen flights of steps, first through the bowels of the palace, then past the dungeons, then past the furnaces, and then finally past the servants’ quarters and kitchens. There was just one more flight of stairs till they reached the palace’s eastern wing, where Ulric’s bedchambers resided. As they climbed the last few steps to that hall, Ulric heard the whining creak of a door swinging open, and a pair of voices emerging from within.  
  
          _“Bloody idiot,”_ Jory cursed.  
  
          “Still mad at me, are you?” Tomas said dully. “Come off it already. Ain’t my fault the birds like me more than they like you.”  
  
          Ulric took Vivian and flattened her and himself against the wall at the top of the stairs, and he held his lantern low as they sank into the shadows. Tomas and Jory passed them by without a glance, walking the hall with their eyes to each other, bickering.  
  
          “Bullshit,” Jory growled. “They like your _coin_ more than they like me. They’re whores. You think they actually fancy that little pecker of yours? When they’re with you they might as well be _dead_ between the legs. It doesn’t feel any different.”  
  
          “Oh, is that right? You want to compare?” Tomas laughed. “Whip it out, then. Let’s see if you’re…”  
  
          Their words faded to silence as the two servants left from earshot. Ulric took Vivian’s arm and rushed down the hall, to the door of his bedchamber, and hurried inside. Ulric swung the door shut behind them and flipped down its iron deadbolt.  
  
          “It’s nice to have a bed to ourselves again,” Vivian said.  
  
          “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” Ulric mused. More often than not their need for secrecy had forced the two of them to make love in the cellar of her mother’s store, or in the shadows of the alleyway behind it. Though the thrill of taking his lover within earshot of others had its charms, Ulric much preferred the pleasure of having a bed of a thick mattress and soft sheets beneath them.  
  
          The quietly crackling fireplace and a dozen candles kept Ulric’s bedchambers bathed in a gentle light. Though the spring was in its last weeks, the heat of the summer was not yet truly upon them, and the air of his room was warm and pleasant.  
  
          Vivian looked over the chambers and turned to Ulric with one brow raised. “No wine?” she questioned.  
  
          Ulric set his lantern by the fireplace. “What d’you mean?” he asked.  
  
          “You had a pitcher of wine in here last time,” she said. “When Mr. Pollard brought me.”  
  
          “I don’t have much thirst for it these days,” he said, grinning. “I’ve got better pleasures to lust for.”  
  
          Vivian smiled at that, but it vanished when her eyes came to rest on Ulric’s longsword resting beside his desk, sitting vertically in its stand, sheathed in its leather scabbard. “That wasn’t here before,” she said, looking over the sword with eyes wide with awe and wonder.  
  
          “The smith had it,” Ulric told her. “Sharpening the steel.”  
  
          Vivian turned to him, holding a finger pointed to his sword. “Can I?” she asked.  
  
          “ _Carefully,_ ” Ulric chuckled.  
  
          Vivian took his sword and slowly drew it from its scabbard. The steel hissed sharply, and Vivian gasped at the sound of it.  
  
          “Most swords don’t hiss like that,” Ulric said, smiling at her reaction. “That one’s got a brass throat in the scabbard. It’s baroque. The Kingsguard swords are like that too.”  
  
          Vivian brought the sword upwards, beside her face, and held the flat of the blade before her eyes. She looked the sword up and down, absorbed in its beauty, almost drooling over the splendor of its steel. The sword was more than four feet from pommel to tip, with a blade of forty-three inches of the finest steel in the Kingdom. The hilt was engraved with the image of the West Sea’s roaring waves.  
  
          “This isn’t a greatsword,” Vivian said, tilting her head.  
  
          “No, it isn’t.”  
  
          Vivian gave him a puzzled look. “Damian said you wielded a greatsword at the Songwood, when you saved him.”  
  
          “I did,” Ulric nodded. “That’s the nice thing about the Syderans. They don’t know how to work steel. They don’t wear plate like a knight does. They wear leather and hide. There was no need to half-sword a blade like you’d do if you were fighting a knight. Just had to grab your heaviest sword and swing it as hard as you could. But that greatsword wasn’t mine. I didn’t bring it home. I don’t know where it is now.”  
  
          Vivian’s breath slowed as she gazed over the sword, enthralled by the blade and how it shined in the light. “Can you show me how to hold it?” she asked him softly.  
  
          Ulric started towards Vivian and came to stand behind her. He rested his chin on her head and put his hands over hers on the sword’s hilt. “Don’t grip the hilt too tight,” he warned her, and he saw her shift her fingers as she heeded his words. “You’ll just strain yourself. Just make sure you’ve got it firm in your hands, nothing more.”  
  
          Ulric brought her arms and the hilt of the sword down to her waist, just beside her right hip, and helped her hold the blade upwards at an angle, so that the tip of the steel was level with her eyes. “If you keep your sword in your vision,” Ulric adjusted her arms a bit, correcting her pose. “It’s easier to make accurate strikes.”  
  
          Vivian listened quietly, engrossed by his words.  
  
          “We call this _‘the Plow,’_ ” Ulric said. “The basic stance. A good all-around style. Protects against most every attack. Allows you every kind of strike. And _this,_ ” he brought her arms up high until the sword’s pommel was beside her head, with the blade held perfectly parallel to the floor. He put her right hand on the hilt just below the crossguard, and her left hand down on the pommel. “This is _‘the Ox.’_ ”  
  
          Ulric let Vivian hold the sword herself, and he put his hand to her thigh and moved it forward, planting her right foot a single pace in front of her left. His left hand he slipped down the cut of her top and under her brassiere, groping one of her fleshy tits. He pressed inwards against her breast and straightened her posture. He craned his head down beside hers and put his lips near her ear. “A countering stance,” he whispered, “But you can kill with it all the same. Get a good thrust with this,” he pressed his groin into her back, just above the curve of her arse. “And you’ll gore a man through three sheets of mail. _‘A bull’s horn pierces all.’_ ”  
  
          Vivian’s breast flushed with heat in Ulric’s hand, and her nipple grew hard and stiff between his fingers. Ulric took his other hand from her thigh and put it to her cheek, turning her towards him. He took her then into a deep, wet kiss, mingling his tongue with hers. They kissed noisily and with passion, and Ulric pushed his tongue further into Vivian’s mouth, devouring her in his lust.  
  
          “That’s enough for now,” Ulric whispered when he pulled his lips from hers. There was a different sword he’d rather Vivian be playing with, a different bit of steel he’d rather her be sheathing. He took his sword from her and slid it back into its scabbard, and Vivian sat on the edge of his bed as he returned the sword to its stand.  
  
          “Did you have that sword forged for you?” Vivian asked him.  
  
          “No,” Ulric told her as he took a seat beside her on the bed. “It was my father’s.” Ulric put his arms to Vivian and took her quick into another kiss, a kiss even hungrier than before. His manhood raged long and hard beneath his breeches, aching to be returned to the warmth and wetness it had so often made its home.  
  
          “And his father’s before him?” Vivian asked him breathlessly.  
  
          “No,” Ulric said tersely, almost growling. “Only his.”  
  
          Vivian put her hand to Ulric’s chest and broke their embrace. “Only his?” she parroted him with her brows knitted.  
  
          “He didn’t want the family sword,” Ulric told her hurriedly, his heart still racing in his lust. “He wanted a sword made special for him. That’s who Father was,” He shrugged. “He wanted to be his own man. The first of his kind.”  
  
          “But you don’t?”  
  
          Ulric’s brow twitched. “What?” he uttered dumbly.  
  
          “Your father had a sword made for him ... but you didn’t.” Vivian pointed over to the sword. “You’re using his.”  
  
          Ulric looked with her finger to his sword.  
  
          “You said he wanted to be his own man, the first of his kind,” she added, and fell quiet for a short moment. “Why don’t you?”  
  
          Ulric was silent for a long while as the cloud of lust drifted from his mind. He shrugged again, weaker this time. “I… don’t know,” he mumbled. “I suppose… when I was younger, I didn’t want to be my own man. I wanted to be like Father. I wanted to do everything like he did,” he sighed. “So I did. I walked like him. I talked like him. I did everything _just_ as he did, always. I still do,” Ulric laughed bitterly at his own stupidity. “I’ve lived all my life in his shadow _by my own choosing,_ ” he shook his head ruefully. “I’m a goddamned fool.”  
  
          Vivian frowned at him, giving Ulric that same pitied look she always did. She put her soft hand to the heavy stubble of his cheek and turned his face to her. “Forgive me, my love,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She grazed her thumb over his bottom lip. “Tonight isn’t for those feelings. Tonight is for us.”  
  
          Ulric took Vivian’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “My love,” he said, kissing her. He took a long breath with her hand to his lips, letting her sweet gaze calm him.  
  
          When the unease within him was quelled, Ulric put his other hand to Vivian’s warm thigh, caressing her smooth flesh. It wasn’t long before his hand crawled up her skirt, to her panties, where a lustful heat rolled from her.  
  
          “Wait,” she said as she pulled away from his touch and fell to her knees beside the bed. “I want to try something different tonight.”  
  
          Vivian pulled her dress over her head, disrobing into her smallclothes, and kicked away her shoes. She put her hands to her back and unfastened her brassiere, freeing her breasts with a hefty bounce. They seemed just a trace larger tonight to Ulric’s eyes, and the pink of her nipples a shade or two darker. It was hard for him to believe that Vivian was still the growing young woman she was. She’d be curvier yet before the years left her stagnant. She was blessed.  
  
          “Did you miss them?” she asked him sweetly, baring her teeth in a wide smile, full of joy and mirth.  
  
          “Yes,” Ulric said, grinning as he cupped her heavy breasts. Vivian took to unfastening his belt as he groped her, and she pulled his trousers and breeches down and off his feet, freeing his cock. She wrapped a soft hand around his shaft and gave him a dozen skillful tugs, stroking him into a quick, aching hardness. She’d become masterful with his manhood, and judging by the sultry confidence Ulric now saw from her, she bloody well knew it.  
  
          Vivian scooted her knees a bit closer to the bed and craned her head down to Ulric’s cock, but stopped with her mouth hovering just inches from his flared crown. She puckered her plump lips and drooled a long, thick strand of saliva onto his cock. She put her hands to each side of her bountiful breasts and slipped his member between the valley of her cleavage. She pressed her tits together against his cock and brought them up and down along his shaft, making his length slick with her spit, and her hot breath washed over his cockhead at the height of every stroke.  
  
          Vivian’s breasts were a sea of soft, wet flesh for Ulric’s cock to swim through, again and again. His pleasure turned to bliss and his shaft hardened to steel, flushing with blood and heat, pulsing with the beat of his heart. _“Oh,”_ Ulric groaned as the air left his lungs in a sudden breath. “Where’d you learn to do this?”  
  
          “I read it in a book,” she told him, keeping her eyes on her squeezed breasts and his cock pressed between them. “ _‘Pleasures of a Woman of the West,’_ ” she said. “The author called herself the Jade Woman. She said she could finish a man with her little finger,” Vivian glanced up at Ulric and waggled her pinky for added effect.  
  
          Vivian quickened her pace, working her soft flesh a bit faster up and down and around his cock, thrusting his length through her breasts in long, smooth strokes.  
  
          “Who taught you to read?” Ulric asked her nearly without breath, unable to hold back his curiosity. A reasonable question. As wealthy of a city Weswyn was, more commoners were illiterate than not.  
  
          “My mother,” Vivian said, and she drooled a second glob of saliva onto his cock, leaving Ulric’s member well and truly soaked with her spit. “Taught me to write, too, for bookkeeping. Now hush,” she ordered him, and her hands and breasts fell still as she lowered her mouth to his cock. “ _‘Quiet your lips,’_ ” She whispered, no doubt quoting that Jade Woman’s book. “ _‘Be silent, and let_ _the pleasure speak.’_ ”  
  
          After the last word had left her tongue, Vivian puckered her lips and sunk them down on his cock, basking his member in the heat of her mouth. She hollowed her cheeks and squeezed together her lips, suckling his prick tightly, and she lapped at his cock with her tongue in long, luxurious licks. The pleasure brought a few drops of early seed leaking from Ulric’s crown, and Vivian swept them up and away with her tongue. Again she took to pushing her breasts up and down his member, keeping his length smothered in her flesh as she bobbed her lips on his crown, popping his cock in and out of her puckered, suckling lips.  
  
          The lewd, fleshy sound of his cock slipping between her wet breasts grew louder and louder as the minutes passed. Ulric’s room was an echo chamber of lust once more, a howling chasm that rang with the symphony of Vivian’s suckling lips, her thrusting breasts, and Ulric’s breathless groans. It was just as Vivian had said. They spoke no words. The pleasure spoke for them.  
  
          Ulric grabbed a handful of Vivian’s golden hair and put a gentle pressure to the back of her head, urging her lips further down his cock. Pleasure and heat bloomed from him, and a prickling pressure loomed large in his loins, raising the hairs of his flesh on-end. _“Vivi,”_ Ulric groaned. He tried to warn her of his coming end, but he couldn’t find the breath to speak another word.  
  
          But his words weren’t needed. Vivian seemed to feel that Ulric was nearing his finish, and she brought her heavy breasts and suckling lips faster and faster down his cock. Ulric jammed his eyes shut as a bliss burst in his core, a fiery pleasure that blazed intense and hot. His cock jumped with his climax, and the first few ropes of his seed spurted far and fast, painting the back of Vivian’s throat white. She flinched a bit at the suddenness of it but gulped his seed down dutifully as it came. She kept Ulric’s cockhead pressed to her wet tongue as he rode his bliss, ensuring his pleasure stayed at its peak. The last few strings of seed squirted and fell limp on the flat of Vivian’s tongue, and she let it rest there.  
  
          When Ulric’s lipstick-smudged cock slipped out with a pop from between her lips, Vivian turned her head up to Ulric and opened her mouth wide, smiling around her open lips as she showed him the cloudy mess of white that rested on her tongue. She sifted it around a bit, giggling as she did so. Eventually she lifted the tip of her tongue and poured his seed down her throat, and she swallowed it in as loud and showy of a gulp as she could muster. When it was gone, she showed him her empty tongue.  
  
          Vivian furrowed her brows then, and she slipped two fingers between her lips. A moment later, she pulled out a single shorthair of Ulric’s, dark and scraggly. Ulric almost thought she’d gag at the sight of it, but she smiled cutely and flicked it away.  
  
          Vivian laughed when Ulric suddenly grabbed her and heaved her into his bed, but he did not join her just yet. First he darted around his chambers and blew out each of the candles, till only the light of the fireplace remained, leaving half the room cast in a gentle darkness. He pulled his tunic and undershirt over his head and threw them aside, atop his trousers and breeches, and kicked off his shoes for good measure. Vivian had already slipped out of her panties when Ulric turned to her. Her hand was between her legs, idly diddling herself as she watched him with needy eyes. She was still unsated, but not for long.  
  
          “Your turn,” Ulric said, smiling from ear to ear as he climbed into the bed. He put his lips to hers first, giving her a quick kiss before pulling away. He put his mouth to her breasts then, her flesh still wet with her own spit, and he spent a fair amount of time suckling each tit. Vivian moaned and pushed her chest out, offering more of her breasts to his lips. But they were not the final prize, and Ulric spent only a few more moments worshipping them before he moved downwards. He put his lips to her belly, just below her navel, and made a trail of gentle kisses down her pale flesh, until he came to the golden hairs of her bush.  
  
          Ulric put a hand to her shorthairs and raked his fingers gently through them. He put his other hand to her right thigh and pushed it to the side, opening her crotch to him. Between her plump, gold-furred folds sat the pink slit of her sex, peeking out at him, shining wet, leaking a bead of lust that trickled down the crack of her arse. Ulric put both hands to her folds and pulled them wide, opening the pink flesh of her cunt to his hungry eyes. Her nectar frothed from her tunnel, bubbly and clear and thick, and the musky scent of a woman wafted to Ulric.  
  
          Ulric kept her folds open as he pecked a few kisses to her cunt, and Vivian squirmed at that first touch of his lips. “ _Oh, God,_ ” she whimpered. Ulric gave a few more quick kisses to her twat before opening his mouth and pushing his tongue into her. He lapped at her every corner and thrusted his tongue as far into her as it would go. Her nectar gathered on his tongue, and he swallowed it down happily. He never tired of her taste. Salty, nearly sour, and entirely addicting. He’d drink her like water if he could.  
  
          Ulric ran his tongue firm over her open slit, from bottom to top, until he came to her clitoris. Quickly, in one short stroke, he flicked the tip of his tongue over the little button. Vivian yelped at the lick, and Ulric smiled. Vivian was an easy girl to please. The slightest pinch of her teats, the quickest flick of his tongue over her clitoris, or the gentlest push of his cock through her cunt, it all had her squirming and curling her toes. _  
  
_           Ulric brushed his tongue over her labia in long, thorough licks, adding his saliva to her moisture as he tasted all that her cunt had to offer. He pushed his tongue deep into her again, and her inner flesh was a dripping oven of warmth, hotter and wetter than Ulric’s own tongue. Ulric reached up with his arms and grabbed a handful of each of her tits, groping her sensitive flesh as he devoured her cunt.  
  
          “ _Ulric,_ ” Vivian moaned. She opened her mouth to speak again, but her lips fell still, and she said nothing. It was for the best. The pleasure would speak for her.  
  
          Ulric shifted one of his hands and brought his two longest fingers together into one singular member, and he pushed that into Vivian’s cunt, spearing it into her up to his knuckles. He kept his fingers pointed upwards as he fucked her with them, rubbing the roof of her tunnel, stroking Vivian in her most sensitive place. He planted his lips over the top of her slit and flicked his tongue fast over her clitoris, again and again, until Vivian’s moans grew loud and her pitch soared high.  
  
          Vivian put her hand to Ulric’s head, grabbing a handful of his curly, brown hair, just as he’d done with her, and she used her other hand to tease and pinch one of her two stiff, pink nipples to give herself that final push. She shot forward and cried out as her climax rocked her, and she collapsed back into the sheets just as quick as she’d risen, squirming and writhing under the weight of her pleasure. Ulric kept her pink button smothered under his tongue as she rode her high, keeping her finish as blissful and as forceful as he could. The tight walls of her twat squeezed Ulric’s fingers in quick, rhythmic contractions, five times, then ten, then fifteen, until her pleasure faded and the flesh of her cunt fell calm and still.  
  
          Ulric rose from between her legs and put his two sodden fingers to Vivian’s lips. Though her eyes had closed and were resting, she took his fingers into her mouth without protest, and she licked them clean, tasting her own salty lust. When Ulric took his fingers from her, she opened her eyes and smiled at him. “You’re hard,” she whispered. Ulric looked down and found his stiff cock poking into her belly. She put her hand around his shaft and gave him a few gentle tugs. “Think you can go again?” she asked him, and her smile widened into a devilish grin.  
  
          Ulric grinned with her and chuckled quietly. “Only one way to find out,” he said.  
  
          Vivian rolled to her side and Ulric laid himself behind her, resting his head on her shoulder and on her soft, golden hair. He took his cock in hand and guided it to her waiting cunt. He rubbed his cockhead over her pink slit in long strokes, wetting his member with the moisture of her lust. Vivian turned her head and Ulric put his lips to hers, kissing her with love and passion. He pushed his cock into her slit until her folds opened and welcomed him into her heat and wetness.  
  
          They let out a joined sigh as his cock slipped through. Ulric pushed himself further, to her hilt, till his groin kissed her fat-cheeked arse. Ulric did not thrust then, but he laid still and shut his eyes as he let himself be lost in Vivian’s heat. She fit him snug, the perfect home for his member, warm and wet and welcoming.  
  
          Laying like this, sheathed inside Vivian, all was right, and all was good. Ulric felt no regret, no fear, and no worry. Only love and pleasure. This was their proper state of being. Not separated, but together, with flesh as one. It was as natural as drawing breath.  
  
          Ulric drew his cock slow from her cunt, until his crown began to slip from her slit, and then eased it back into her, pushing through her tunnel as her folds dragged along his length. He kissed Vivian deeper then, pushing his tongue against hers, and she moaned a hot breath into him. But Ulric didn’t keep a slow pace for long. Only moments passed before he began to fuck her faster and faster, rocking her body with his thrusts, crashing his hips into the fat of her jiggling arse in a series of audible slaps. Ulric put his arm under Vivian’s swaying breasts and hugged her close, keeping her pressed against him, cherishing her warmth.  
  
          They must have made love like this for the better part of an hour, but eventually, to Ulric’s dismay, it had to come to an end. His second climax hurtled towards him, and Vivian raised her leg for him as he groaned in bliss and made one final thrust. He plunged his cock deep into her, giving her every inch he could, till his tightening balls pressed into her wet folds. Ulric broke their kiss and panted for breath as his cock twitched out the last of what he could offer, a few more meager squirts of seed for her cunt. It flowed outwards, onto his balls.  
  
          When the pleasure passed, Ulric held Vivian close, and they snuggled together in each other’s warmth. He kept his manhood sheathed in her, letting their flesh stay joined. He closed his eyes and took in a deep, tranquil breath, to the bottom of his lungs.  
  
          “I’d be fine with dying tonight,” he sighed quietly.  
  
          “What d’you mean?” Vivian whispered as she nestled herself a bit closer to his chest.  
  
          “Being here, with you,” he smiled. “There’s no better night to go.”  
  
          Waves of tiredness washed over Ulric, each one stronger than the last. Sleepiness pulled at his mind from every corner, begging to throw the curtains shut, to let his thoughts fade. Neither he nor Vivian bothered to slip under his bed’s thick blankets. Their flesh was hot from pleasure, and they were more than warm enough in each other’s embrace.  
  
          “Ulric?” Vivian chirped up, just as Ulric’s slumber had nearly taken him. “I need to tell you something.”  
  
          “What is it, love?” Ulric asked sleepily, almost slurring his words.  
  
          Vivian fell silent for a long moment. “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said.  
  
          Ulric sighed again, letting his breath come and leave him in two long, restful breaths. His thoughts fell to nothing, and his mind to darkness.  
  
_After some time passed, images tore from the darkness and came to form before Ulric’s closed eyes. Cloudy, shimmering thoughts formed into pictures and sounds. They came first like a storm, with no rhyme or reason, with no single thing able to be discerned from the mess of the cloud. Eventually the images and sounds slowed, and Ulric could make out the scene and the sounds. He could hear, not with his ears, but with his mind, and he could see, not with his eyes, but with his soul. It was a scene he’d watched and heard before. Many times before.  
  
          “Be calm, my love,” Priscilla begged her husband. “It’s alright.”  
  
          The King flailed in his sickbed, babbling manic nonsense, his eyes wide with terror. The fever was at its worst now, and the King had fallen under a spell of hysteria. Priscilla, Edwin, and several doctors under service of the Crown huddled around him, tending to him, all to no avail.  
  
          Prince Ulric watched from the far side of the bedchambers, holding a balled-up fist against his teeth. His face was wet with tears. He was a boy of just sixteen years, but he wouldn’t be a boy after tonight.  
  
          When the hysteria faded, the King laid still, his breath low and hoarse. Ulric heard the doctors whisper to Priscilla that the King was long past the point of recovery. They said the fever would take him before dawn. Priscilla sobbed and wept at that, and fled from the room. Cautiously, Ulric took the empty spot she’d left beside the bed. Edwin put his hand to Ulric’s shoulder as he looked unto his father. It would be the last time Ulric ever saw him.  
  
          Ulric and his father met eyes, and they looked to each other for what seemed an eternity. Ulric grabbed his father’s hand and squeezed it tight. When Ulric’s father opened his mouth, Ulric thought he would speak, but instead a rattling breath left his lungs, and his eyes fell still and listless as his life left him. He was gone then. Then and forever.  
  
_           Ulric’s eyes snapped open as the air flooded his lungs in a gasping breath. His chest heaved and his hands trembled, and his flesh was slick with his sweat. He hadn’t had that dream in years.  
  
          The blackstorm was raging outside. A heavy rain pelted the eastern wall of his bedchambers. Just as Ulric let his eyes fall shut again, a loud bolt of thunder roared outside, stirring him fully awake. Then another thunderclap came, cracking like a whip, somehow louder than the one before it. Ulric doubted he’d be able to return to sleep.  
  
          Ulric held out his arm beside him, reaching out for Vivian and her warmth, but his hand fell empty. He rose forward from the sheets and patted his hands around himself, searching for any sign of her, but there was none. Ulric’s heart sank in his chest. Vivian was gone.  
  
          “Vivi?” Ulric called out. He swung his legs over the edge of his bed and put his feet to the carpet. He swiped his breeches from the floor and pulled them over himself, giving himself only a bare minimum of modesty, and took his lantern from beside the fireplace and set it alight with the crackling flame. With the lit lantern in hand, he darted towards the door. _“Vivian?”_ he shouted.  
  
          _Good God_ did Ulric just wish that he’d hear her voice then, that she’d call out and assure him she was alright and that all was well. But she didn’t. There was no sound but the storm.  
  
          A thought came to Ulric then. He turned ‘round and looked to the deadbolt on the door. It had been flipped up. Not broken. Vivian had left of her own volition. Or she’d been coerced. Wherever she was, she was in the nude. Her dress, shoes, brassiere and panties all laid on the carpet. The naked lover of a married King, lured out into the halls of a palace in the dark of night. It was a tale without a happy ending.  
  
          Ulric grabbed his sword from its stand, as well as the swordbelt beside it, and fastened it tight on his bare waist, just above his breeches, and stormed out the door.  
  
          Out in the hall, Ulric turned and saw Sir Murdoch jogging to him, his heavy armor rattling noisily. His right hand was held over the pommel of his sheathed sword, at the ready, and he clutched a lantern with his left. He wore his helmet, open-faced and with noseguard. It was Sir Murdoch’s night to watch the halls of the palace’s eastern wing, and Ulric was glad for that. There was no Knight of the Kingsguard that he trusted more.  
  
          “Your Grace,” Sir Murdoch said. “I heard you shout. Are you—”  
  
          “—Have you seen a girl in the halls?” Ulric cut him off. “Just now? Blonde hair, blue eyes? A bit short?”  
  
          Sir Murdoch shook his head. He held a look of unvoiced confusion in his eyes. “No,” he said.  
  
          The blackstorm roared as thunder rang out.  
  
          Ulric threw his arm westwards. “Check the privies, the Great Hall, the kitchens, _everywhere,_ ” he ordered the knight hurriedly. “Bring her to my chambers if you find her. _Unharmed._ I’m going to check the Sun Gardens.”  
  
          Ulric turned to leave the knight, but Sir Murdoch put his hand to his shoulder and stopped him. “There’s a blackstorm, Your Grace,” he told Ulric, as if he’d somehow not noticed it. “The Sun Gardens aren’t safe.”  
  
          Ulric wouldn’t be the first man struck by lightning and killed atop the palace. But that didn’t matter. Not right then. Vivian mattered.  
  
          “Do as I command,” Ulric growled at him. “Go. _Now._ ”  
  
          Sir Murdoch gave Ulric a quick bow and hurried down the hall. Ulric made his way to the stairwell, the same one he and Vivian had climbed just hours earlier, and he stormed up the last few flights of stairs. Near the top, Ulric’s foot caught on one of the steps and he fell hard. The glass of his lantern shattered against the stone of the stairs, and the flame was snuffed out. “ _Damn_ ,” Ulric cursed, and he pushed himself onto to his feet. He was in the pitch black then, and he used his hands as his eyes to make his way through the dark, up the last few steps. Thunder roared when Ulric put his hands to the iron door.  
  
          The door took all of Ulric’s might to push open against the winds of the blackstorm. He forced it open with a grunt as he stumbled through and fell again onto his hands and knees. The wind slammed the door shut behind him, but Ulric only hardly heard it. The storm was deafening. The rain that had soaked him in seconds was more waterfall than it was rain, and it was every bit as loud. As he laid there on his hands and knees with the rain pelting him, Ulric noticed then that he could see, if only barely. He could see his hands and he could see the stone beneath them, and when he peered upwards, he could see in front of himself too. He rose carefully to his feet and looked skywards with his hand held above his brow. The full moon shone brightly from a gap in the black clouds of the storm, beaming light. A bolt of lightning shot through the sky as Ulric watched, and he flinched from the boom that immediately followed.  
  
          Ulric kept that hand above his brow as he waded through the rain to the flowerbeds of the western end of the gardens, opposite from the stairwell he’d just climbed. He heard a girl’s voice crying then, sobbing and wailing hysterically. Ulric’s eyes widened when he heard it, and he put his hand to the hilt of his sword as he sprinted to the sound of it. After rounding a bend, he found Sir Gordon Rosewall of his Kingsguard standing at the waist-high wall overlooking the West Sea, clad in his armor and helmet, with Vivian struggling beneath him. The knight had a fistful of Vivian’s wet hair held violently in one hand and a flailing arm of hers in the other. Vivian’s face was wet with tears as well as rain, and her eyes were puffy and red from sobbing. The knight yanked Vivian up by her hair and pressed her over the waist-high wall as Ulric sprinted to them, but Vivian held firm on the railing, only just managing to keep herself from being tossed over and dropped to the tall rocks of the West Sea.  
  
          _“Sir Gordon!”_ Ulric roared at him, expelling every breath of his lungs in his shout.  
  
          The knight whipped his head ‘round and scowled at Ulric. Sir Gordon’s pushing hand slackened, and Vivian fell to her knees beneath him. She sobbed louder.  
  
          “It’s alright, love,” Ulric hushed her, yelling to her. “You’re safe. Sir Gordon will be letting you go now.”  
  
          “Like hell,” the knight shouted back, still holding Vivian by her hair.  
  
          “Have you gone mad?” Ulric bellowed as his anger burst.  
  
          “ _Me?_ You take a commoner bitch into your bed, in the same palace where your wife, _my cousin,_ sleeps, and _I’m_ the mad one?”  
  
          “I-I went to the privy to pee,” Vivian stammered, still sobbing. “He grabbed me.”  
  
          A thunderclap boomed in the storm.  
  
          “If she’d bore you a son before Elise,” Sir Gordon growled. “D’you have _any_ _idea_ what that’d mean for my family?” He yanked Vivian’s hair to emphasize his words, and she yelped at the pain. Fury welled in Ulric’s chest, and his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.  
  
          “You don’t serve the Rosewalls anymore,” Ulric snarled at him. “You serve _me._ Or have you forgotten?”  
  
          Sir Gordon shook his head. “I remember.”  
  
          “Let her go!” Ulric shouted. _“I command you!”_  
  
          “No,” the knight yelled. “She goes to the rocks.”  
  
          Sir Gordon lifted Vivian to her feet again and pushed her to the railing. Just before he could throw her over, Ulric advanced on the knight and drew his sword, and put the tip of the steel through the gap under Sir Gordon’s helmet, prodding the exposed flesh of the back of his neck.  
  
          “You will do as I command,” Ulric growled at him. “Or you will die.”  
  
          Sir Gordon sighed a long breath and released his grip. Vivian fell to the floor again, grabbing her scalp with a pained grimace. A bolt of thunder shot down from the storm and broke over the sea.  
  
          “Vivi, love,” Ulric said sweetly. “Get up and run to my chambers. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”  
  
          Vivian looked to Ulric, but she did not move.  
  
          “Go,” Ulric said, sterner this time.  
  
          She listened then, and crawled out from beneath the knight. She bounded up onto her feet and hurried away, holding her arms over her breasts and crotch.  
  
          “Drop your swordbelt,” Ulric growled at the knight when Vivian was out of sight. “ _Slowly._ Move quick and I’ll stick your neck.”  
  
          Sir Gordon did as he asked, and moved his hands with slow, exaggerated movements. Ulric’s hands tensed when the knight finally put his hand to his swordbelt, and Ulric readied himself to plunge his blade at a half-second’s notice. But Sir Gordon dropped his swordbelt harmlessly, and it fell to the stone with a muffled thud. Ulric’s fear and breath eased. He drew back his sword a single foot and paced a few steps back from the knight. “Turn to me,” Ulric told him, and the knight again did as he asked. “We’re going to the dungeons,” he said.  
  
          Sir Gordon stood unmoving. Another thunderbolt struck the sea.  
  
          _“Move,”_ Ulric growled at him.  
  
          Sir Gordon put both of his hands to Ulric’s sword in one quick motion, holding his blade still. Ulric looked from the knight to his sword and tried to pull it free, but the blade was immovable in the hard leather of the knight’s gauntlets. Sir Gordon yanked Ulric forward, balled up one of his hands into a fist, and brought it hurtling towards him. The steel of his armored knuckles caught Ulric hard in his nose, breaking it out of place. Ulric barely managed to keep his hands to the hilt of his sword as he stumbled back from the force.  
  
          Ulric spit a dark glob of blood that flowed from the back of his throat. He put his hand to the maligned bridge of his nose, drew a quick, deep breath, and popped it into place. A sharp pain rocked through his nerves and brought tears to his eyes, but he did not falter. Sir Gordon had already grabbed his swordbelt from the ground when Ulric turned to him, and when they met eyes, the knight drew his steel with a metallic hiss.  
  
          “Are you truly so mad that you’d kill your own King?” Ulric shouted through the storm.  
  
          “And what is my alternative?” Sir Gordon bellowed back. “Let you brand me a traitor and execute me?”  
  
          A bolt of thunder cracked through the sky, flashing bright and white over them.  
  
          “Surrender and I’ll spare your life,” Ulric yelled to him. “You’ll live, you have my word. You’ll leave my Kingsguard, but you’ll live.”  
  
          “You’ll cut out my tongue, then,” Sir Gordon shouted at him. “Or maybe you’ll just lock me in the dungeons and throw away the key,” the knight shook his head furiously. “No. I choose freedom.”  
  
          They circled each other, pacing around the stone walkways, holding the hilts of their swords at their hips, low and ready. Sir Gordon burst into a short laughter, and the blackstorm thundered with him. “You ought to be afraid, you know,” he yelled to Ulric. “You’ve got no armor. I can see the months of wine in that belly,” he mocked as he pounded a fist to the stomach of his armor. “When was the last time you swung that sword like you meant it? A year? D’you still know how to wield it?”  
  
          “Only one way to find out,” Ulric yelled back.  
  
          Sir Gordon grinned, and he charged him.  
  
          Thunder roared and steel hissed. The blackstorm raged over them, and Ulric hardly heard his sword meet with Sir Gordon’s whenever the thunder cracked. Sir Gordon brought his sword headlong to Ulric’s neck and shoulders in quick, fluid strikes. They were killing blows, would they have hit their mark. _God_ was the knight fast, seemingly twice as fast as Ulric, despite the fifty pounds of plated steel he wore. Ulric kept his feet bouncing and jumping, pacing back on the defensive as he weathered Sir Gordon’s attacks. Their steel sang high and loud at every strike, and the thunder seemed to echo every clash of their swords.  
  
          They danced in quick, bounding steps across the stone walkways between the flowerbeds. Spit flew through Sir Gordon’s mouth with every shout. The knight brought his steel down harder and faster, and Ulric’s heart jumped when one unblocked strike swiped just inches from his eye, cutting through a lock of his wet hair. He had heard the blade cut through the air. Sir Gordon backed Ulric against a tall shelf of potted flowers, and Ulric spun away just as the knight brought his sword down with a grunt, cleaving the wooden shelf in two. The pots shattered on the ground, and the clumps of dirt that burst from them were scattered in an instant by the rain.  
  
          Sir Gordon hunted Ulric, chasing him and launching a tirade of swings and strikes that seemed without flaw, but eventually Ulric caught a mistake from him. The knight telegraphed a strike a bit too clearly, and Ulric predicted it perfectly. He slipped away Sir Gordon’s sword with a flawless parry and brought his own sword down hard on the knight’s shoulder, but the steel bounced harmlessly off his plated armor and threw Ulric’s arm back.  
  
          A stupid attack. An attack without thought. Sir Gordon was in full armor. Ulric would need to pierce the gaps between the armor’s plates to fell him.  
  
          Ulric shifted his left hand to the blade of his sword, about a foot from the crossguard, wielding his blade like a short, two-handed spear. His change to the half-sword was not lost on Sir Gordon, and the knight held his sword arm out to his full reach, using his range. Sir Gordon hovered the tip of his sword just inches from Ulric’s. Ulric circled to his left, and the knight turned with him.  
  
          When the blackstorm lashed out again and thundered, Ulric lunged forward, thrusting his sword with speed and strength. Sir Gordon caught his blade before Ulric took even two full steps, and struck his sword away hard. Ulric spun to recover and to face Sir Gordon again, but the knight was already bringing his sword down on him. The tip of his blade caught Ulric’s chest, and the steel split his outermost flesh from breastbone to stomach. Ulric backpedaled and groaned a pained breath as the long cut flushed red with his blood. A burning agony seared through his nerves, and his breath quickened. The heavy rain wetted his blood and poured it down his belly and waist, darkening his breeches.  
  
          A stupid attack, again. Thoughtless, again. Sir Gordon was Kingsguard. The most talented of any knight. He was smart enough to know he had the range if Ulric half-sworded. Ulric would suffer a worse wound if he tried another thrust.  
  
          Pain and fear swelled in Ulric. He was outmatched and out-armed. He would die tonight. He saw no other outcome.  
  
          Sir Gordon pursued Ulric and kept him pacing ever backwards, crashing their swords together whenever Ulric dared to strike at him. The rain pelted the knight’s armor like a hyper-quick war drum, an omen to Ulric of the blood and death that was to come.  
  
          Ulric’s sword arm grew more tired with every strike, and the pain of his chest and nose ached and throbbed worse with every minute. Ulric backpedaled into the Sun Garden’s eastmost flowerbed, a bed of roses. Thunder cackled from the blackstorm as Ulric’s bare feet slapped noisily through the wet mud, caking his flesh as far up to his ankles.  
  
          A rosebed. There wasn’t a more fitting place for Ulric to die.  
  
          The knight followed Ulric into the garden with a bloodlust in his eyes, but with Sir Gordon’s first two steps, his heavy steel boots sank quick and deep into the mud. He fell forwards, and his hands too sank into the earth.  
  
          Ulric’s heart quickened. He lunged forward just as Sir Gordon wrenched his arms and sword free from the mud and rose to his knees, but the knight had no position to parry or counterstrike.  
  
          Ulric brought a flurry of strikes down on the knight, clashing his steel against Sir Gordon’s with all his might, once, twice, then thrice, until the knight’s grip had loosened, and one final strike threw his sword from his hand and tossed it into the rosebed, where it sank and vanished into the mud. Sir Gordon fell and collapsed onto the flat of his back, and Ulric was standing over him in an instant, prodding the tip of his sword against the soft flesh of Sir Gordon’s throat. Another inch forward and the steel would end him, and Ulric wouldn’t make the mistake of taking his sword from the knight’s throat again.  
  
          “The girl will still die,” Sir Gordon growled at him. “You can’t save her. Someone will put her to the sword.”  
  
          The clouds flashed bright, and thunder roared again in the sky.  
  
          Ulric shook his head, his chest heaving with his breath. “It won’t be you,” he said.  
  
          Ulric drove his sword through Sir Gordon’s throat, and a thick, bubbling blood surged forth around the steel. Sir Gordon grabbed the sword, but his life and blood already flowed from him. His eyes grew listless and empty, and his hands slackened and fell limp at his sides. His blood flooded into the mud, drowning the roses.  
  
          “Your Grace?” a voice shouted through the storm. Edwin’s voice.  
  
          Ulric drew back his sword and held it at his side, and the rain washed the steel clean. Ulric looked down to the slain knight, looking deep into the man’s lifeless gaze.  
  
          “ _God almighty,_ ” Edwin uttered in awe and terror as he and Sir Murdoch waded through the mud of the rosebed. Edwin was in his nightrobe. He’d likely just been pulled from his bed.  
  
          “What in hell happened?” Sir Murdoch asked.  
  
          Another bolt of thunder flew down from the black clouds, striking a stone pillar not thirty feet from them, superheating it and shattering it into shards of hot rubble.  
  
          “Help me with him,” Edwin said hurriedly as he leaned down to grab the knight’s limp arms. “Get him inside.”  
  
          It took the might of all three men to heave the knight out of the mud and into the stairwell. When they’d finally gotten him through the door, Edwin fell onto his bottom against the wall and groaned. Sir Murdoch looked over the slain knight, and his eyes caught on the wound of his throat.  
  
          “You’re wounded,” Edwin said.  
  
          Ulric looked to the cut on his chest. “It’s shallow,” he muttered. “I’ll take care of it.”  
  
          “This about the girl?” Edwin asked.  
  
          Ulric said nothing. There was no need to.  
  
          “A fever took him in the night,” Edwin said calmly as he pushed himself to his feet. He was speaking of how Sir Gordon had died, or at least, how the tale would be told.  
  
          Sir Murdoch looked to his King, and Ulric nodded.  
  
          “Take him to the furnaces,” Edwin said.  
  
          “The Rosewalls will want the body,” Sir Murdoch argued.  
  
          “He was burned to stop the spread of plague,” Edwin countered him, glaring at the knight.  
  
          Sir Murdoch looked to Ulric again.  
  
          “Do it,” Ulric commanded him, and turned and left down the stairs, mindful of the broken glass from the shattered lantern.  
  
          A dark water dripped from Ulric as he walked the hall to his chambers. Rain and mud and blood.  
  
          Ulric rapped his fist gently against his door. “Vivi?” he called out softly. “It’s me.”  
  
          Another thunderclap.  
  
          Ulric heard the deadbolt flip. When he swung the door open, Vivian had returned to his bed. Her hair was slicked against her neck. A trickle of blood had dried on her forehead, fallen from her scalp. She was not sobbing. She was silent. Ulric sat beside her, and she rested her head against his shoulder.  
  
          They sat there for some time, without speaking a word. The blackstorm raged outside. It would continue into the morning.  
  
          “Ulric,” Vivian said in a whisper, without emotion. A bolt of thunder shook the walls after she spoke. “I’m pregnant.”


End file.
